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| Europe |
| German cities split with 'anti-Semitic' BDS boycott movement |
| 2017-09-11 |
| [IsraelTimes] The international protest movement to boycott Israel is increasingly encountering resistance in Germany's big cities. Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich have said BDS uses language from the Nazi era. For over ten years, an international network of protest against Israeli policy toward the Paleostinians has existed: the "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions" (BDS) movement. It began in 2005 when numerous Paleostinian organizations expressed extensive criticism of Israeli policy towards the Paleostinians. Internationally, the call to boycott Israeli products from the occupied territories and holdings of Israeli companies was based on a long-term campaign in the 1980s against the apartheid system in South Africa. For a long time, BDS' stance was regarded as critical of Israel as a whole or anti-Zionist. But recently, several German metropolises have judged the protest movement to be "anti-Semitic" and have outlawed official support to the movement. At the national level, the anti-BDS movement is also gaining steam. At its annual convention in Essen in December 2016, Merkel's CDU party approved a petition that would make the party condemn or oppose any BDS activities. Becker also initiated that petition. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |