Feb 17, 2014
Using economic sanctions to
influence Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians is a “new
form of anti-Semitism,” Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said,
even as boycott activists contended that recent successes had
Israeli leaders “panicking.”
Bennett told a Jerusalem conference of American-Jewish
leaders today that despite boycott efforts, Israel continued to
draw record foreign investment, especially in its technology
sector.
“I’m not at all ignoring this sort of threat, but let’s be
very clear: Anyone who suggests to boycott Israel, that’s an
unacceptable approach, that’s a new form of anti-Semitism,”
Bennett said. He asked conference participants to campaign
against boycotts.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid and other Israeli officials
have warned that the sanctions’ still-negligible economic effect
may deepen after several European companies and institutions cut
ties in recent months with Israeli companies that operate in
east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinians claim the
territories, captured by Israel in 1967, for a future state.
The sanctions campaign also won a higher profile after
actress Scarlett Johansson cut her ties last month with the
U.K.-based humanitarian group Oxfam, which criticized her for
acting as a celebrity spokeswoman for SodaStream International
Ltd. (SODA), the Israeli maker of home soda machines with a factory in
the West Bank.
Boycott leaders, meeting today in the West Bank near
Ramallah, said a decade of activism was bearing fruit.
The boycott initiative has “reached a tipping point in its
struggle for comprehensive Palestinian rights under
international law,” said Omar Barghouti, a founder of BDS, the
Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement. “The Israeli
government is panicking because of the recent fast growth of BDS
around the world, particularly in countries that have always
been considered Israel’s closest allies in the world: the U.S.,
Germany, the Netherlands, among others.”
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-17/israeli-minister-slams-boycotts-as-new-form-of-anti-semitism-.html?cmpid=yhoo.
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