CFI Executive Director, James Gurd, has welcomed the Government’s Economic Activities of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill in an op-ed for Jewish News, asserting that the “real-world harm that BDS has wrought on community cohesion is incontrovertible”.
Reflecting on his personal experience of encountering harmful BDS activities on university campus in 2009, he notes that BDS had “long-since moved from campuses into mainstream politics, reaching the very heart of taxpayer funded bodies”. “It is time to act before any more harm can be done”, he warns.
Last Monday, the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, dubbed the ‘BDS Bill’, passed its second reading in the House of Commons.
The Bill is “a deliberate and targeted response to BDS”. The oped contends: “No other country – however blatant or grotesque their human rights abuses may be – is deserving of the wrath and fury of BDS activists. Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, China’s systematic persecution of the Uyghurs, Assad’s butchering of Syria? Not a single one managed to raise an eyebrow”.
He also argues that “the UK is by no means alone in wanting to tackle BDS – the German Parliament has passed a resolution unequivocally condemning BDS as antisemitic”.
The committee stage for the Bill is expected to occur in the autumn.
