Anti-Israel NGO officials exploit EU mechanism for BDS
On February 20, 2022, over 100 European and international NGOs, self-proclaimed grassroots movements, and politicized trade unions launched a BDS campaign headlined “#StopTradeWithSettlements."
Discriminatory BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) campaigns aim to isolate Israel internationally through political warfare — the exploitation of human rights, double standards, comparisons to apartheid South Africa, and false accusations of “war crimes.”
On February 20, 2022, over 100 European and international NGOs, self-proclaimed grassroots movements, and politicized trade unions launched a BDS campaign headlined “#StopTradeWithSettlements."
On February 1, Amnesty International will release yet another volume in the litany of copy-paste NGO reports that label Israel as an “apartheid” state.
For years, pro-BDS NGOs, some with links to terror groups, have lobbied Congress against American security assistance to Israel, including Iron Dome and other defensive systems. Although their efforts have failed to impact policy, the NGOs have gained support from high-profile progressive Representatives and garnered media attention for the anti-Israel agenda.
In the past 18-months, at least 15 political NGOs involved in anti-Israel advocacy, as well as their UN allies, have issued publications accusing Israel of “apartheid.” This offensive term is used to advance a narrative of unparalleled Israeli immorality, and to promote demonization through BDS and lawfare, including in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Through its ratings and reports on companies, Sustainalytics promotes discriminatory BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) campaigns against Israeli companies and businesses operating in Israel and the West Bank.
On January 12, 2021, the Israeli NGO B’Tselem launched a high-visibility international campaign, under the headline, “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid,” escalating its political and ideological condemnations that go far beyond criticism of policies.
JCB (J.C Bamford Excavators), a UK-based manufacturer of construction equipment, has become a target of BDS campaigns due to its sale of equipment to the State of Israel. These campaigns, primarily from British NGOs, intensified in 2020 after JCB was included on the discriminatory UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) “blacklist” of companies operating in Israel, published in February 2020.
On April 27, 2020, Al-Haq and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN, Ireland) published, “Business and Human Rights in Occupied Territory: A Guidance for Upholding Human Rights" that attempted to mainstream BDS against Israel in a UN framework
Since the publication of the UN BDS blacklist, and in spite of the current global COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic turmoil, NGO activists have been targeting companies with using the list.
The 2017-2021 Joint Strategic Framework for Belgian aid to Palestinians, coordinated by Oxfam Solidarity, M3M, SolSoc and APEFE, commits its signatories to promoting a variety of anti-Israel campaigns, through advocacy and lobbying in Belgium and the EU.