BRITISH-PALESTINIAN surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah called on Western governments to impose sanctions on Israel during the annual Jimmy Reid Memorial lecture at a packed Glasgow City Chambers on Thursday night.

Following in the footsteps of Mr Reid, Dr Abu-Sittah won 80 per cent of the vote last year to take on the role of rector of the University of Glasgow.

He used his profile to advocate for peace and justice for the people of Palestine and Gaza, and his position on the university’s court to demand it sever its extensive links with arms companies with links to the Israeli war machine, such as BAE Systems.

The speech came after the Labour government joined the 156 states who have recognised Palestine, but with little sign it would adopt the view of its own party conference in recognising a genocide was taking place and imposing an arms embargo.

Dr Abu-Sittar told the audience: “When faced with the choice of either imposing sanctions on Israel, or recognising the Palestinians, the Western governments have chosen the performative, economically neutral position of recognising the Palestinians while they’re being killed.

“We celebrate the recognition of the Palestinian state, not because it’s the prize that we’ve wanted, but because it’s an indication that people’s mobilisation, that what people, everyday people, are doing in the struggle, is putting these governments in a position where they have a binary decision to make and now they have made that.”

Clear signs that the people intended to keep up that pressure was evident hours earlier at Glasgow’s central station and Waverly station in Edinburgh, where hundreds of protesters rallied in solidarity with Palestine, and the four Scots comrades — Mags Pacetta, Yvonne Ridley, Sid Khan and Jim Hickey — detained by Israeli forces along with more than 400 others as their flotilla attempted to break the siege with food for the people of Gaza.

Dr Abu-Sittar said: “Now is the time to double our efforts and to keep pushing for what we want, which are sanctions that disentangle that weave that Israel has been woven into, disentangle the threads of power — sanctions are the only way to end the genocide.

“But I celebrate the recognition, not as an aim, but as an indicator that we are heading in the right direction.”