Foreign Secretary Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt MP on Saturday welcomed the German parliament’s labelling of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic, underlining: “boycotting Israel — the world’s only Jewish state — is antisemitic.
The Foreign Secretary said on Twitter: “Tremors, turbulence and terror in Middle East remind us of urgent need for peace: two-state solution. But the foundations for peace are respect and coexistence. Boycotting Israel — the world’s only Jewish state — is antisemitic. I salute Germany for taking stand”.
On Friday, lawmakers in the German Bundestag voted in favour of a non-binding resolution labelling the BDS movement as antisemitic and said the actions of BDS were reminiscent of the “terrifying” Nazi campaign against the Jewish people under Adolf Hitler.
The motion, submitted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the Greens and Free Democrats, pledges to reject all financial support for the BDS movement.
The resolution said that “The ‘don’t buy’ stickers of the BDS movement on Israeli products [could be associated] with the Nazi call ‘don’t buy from Jews’, and other corresponding graffiti on facades and shop windows”.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the “important” decision in a statement posted on Twitter, adding “I hope that this decision will bring about concrete steps and I call upon other countries to adopt similar legislation”.
The BDS movement condemned the move as “a betrayal of international law”.
