The Edinburgh Evening News reports that four anti-Israel protesters who disrupted the Jerusalem String Quartet’s performance in Scotland will now be charged with racially-aggravated harrasment:

It was claimed they caused alarm and distress to the musicians and audience by shouting at the players while they were performing at the Queen’s Hall on August 29.

It is worth reflecting on a comment made by one of the defendants:

“…there is no question whatsoever that any of our actions are racist in any way. The Palestinian Solidarity Movement is an anti-racist movement based on anti-racism”

This is a common but obviously false argument: Firstly is the claim that the whole Palestine Solidarity movement is “anti-racist”. This is transparently not true; the Palestine Solidarity movement has its share of outright racists and antisemites, a fact acknowledged even by many anti-Israel activists. Simply being a member of a pro-Palestinian group doesn’t automatically make someone an “anti-racist”.

Secondly, it’s important to try and understand what a racially-aggravated offense is. The law says:

An action is racially aggravated if-

1. immediately before, during or immediately after carrying out the course of conduct or action the offender evinces towards the person affected malice and ill-will based on that person’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial group; or
2. the course of conduct or action is motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards members of a racial group based on their membership of that group.

The law also helpfully defines a racial group:

“racial group” means a group of persons defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins

Now imagine someone wants to boycott all Israelis. So this person goes to a performance of an Israeli music group, shouts insults at the performers, and generally disrupts the performance. Perhaps they accuse the performers of being racists or murderers because they’re Israeli. Whether that person is a “racist” or an “anti-racist”, it certainly seems like they’ve committed racially aggravated harassment as defined above.