Germany: foundation under fire for awarding prize to antisemitic BDS group

Via Jerusalem Post:

The Central Council of Jews in Germany and American Jewish organizations blasted the Roland Röhl Foundation for its decision to award in March a peace prize to a BDS group which is widely considered to be antisemitic.

(...)

The group is called Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and is an energetic supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement that targets the Jewish state.

The nearly 100,000 member Central Council of Jews in Germany classified Jewish Voice as an “antisemitic association,” according to a German DPA wire service report.

Dr. Josef Schuster, the president of the council, wrote a letter last week the city of Göttingen’s Mayor Rolf-Georg Köhler urging him to take a stand against the antisemitism prevalent in the group.

“The association is an active supporter of events of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel,” wrote Schuster, adding “I certainly do not have to explain which historical precursors have had boycotts against Jewish institutions or Jews in Germany, and what associations are created with such actions.”

Schuster was referring to Hitler movement to boycott Jewish businesses – a nascent phase in the Holocaust. Köhler, who is a member of the foundation’s board, announced on Wednesday that the city will not participate in the award ceremony this year, according to a report in the daily paper Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten by the journalists Thoralf Cleven and Ansgar Nehls.

In response to Schuster’s criticism, the mayor called for the slated March 9 event to be suspended until the antisemitic allegation could be clarified.

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Europe: SodaStream BDS lobbyists were particularly effective in Europe

Via The Washington Times (Clifford D. May):

[...] Unsurprisingly, champions of the Palestinian cause denounced Mr. Birnbaum [SodaStream's CEO] as anti-Palestinian. In particular, advocates for BDS (the campaign to de-legitimize and demonize Israel through boycotts, divestments and sanctions) accused him of stealing Palestinian land, profiting from the “occupation” and exploiting Palestinian workers.  

“Suddenly,” Mr. Birnbaum recounted to me over dinner in Tel Aviv three years ago, “I’m a walking war criminal!”  

BDS lobbyists were particularly effective in Europe. For example, they persuaded retailers in Sweden to ask Mr. Birnbaum not to send them SodaStream products from the West Bank. Those retailers had no problem receiving merchandize made in China, a country where about a million Muslims are right now incarcerated in “re-education camps,” a country that occupies Tibet (offering no “two-state solution”), a country where persecution of Christians and other minorities continues to worsen.  

When Mr. Birnbaum needed a new and bigger factory, he decided not to build in the West Bank but instead to relocate to the Negev Desert, well within the “armistice lines,” the temporary borders drawn in 1949 when the war between the fledgling Jewish state and the Arab nations surrounding it came to a halt.

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European Union continues to fiscally back hate education against Israel

Via JNS (Michael Calvo):

By supporting Palestinian teachers’ salaries, the European Union financially participated and continues to participate in hate education; disregard for life of the Jews and others by promoting jihad; and inciting schoolchildren to become martyrs. That makes it an accomplice to the killings and injuries of innocent victims.

In May 2018, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy published a report titled “The Money Trail: The Millions Given by EU Institutions to NGOs With Ties to Terror and Boycotts Against Israel, An In-Depth Analysis.” Two months later, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Frederica Mogherini replied to the report. Her main arguments being that allegations according to which the European Union supports incitement or terror are unfounded and unacceptable - that terror and boycott are two distinct phenomena.

The Israeli Ministry’s report is clear and substantiated, and Mogherini should read it again.

What is not mentioned in the report is that the European Union and its member states finance NGOs that harass Israel, Israeli officials and corporations doing business in Israel and in Europe with lawsuits. The European Union still finances the Palestinian Authority that encourages Palestinians to kill Jews. “The Palestinian Authority’s practice of paying salaries to terrorists serving in Israeli prisons, as well as to the families of deceased terrorists, is an incentive to commit acts of terror.” (Taylor Force Act).

It is well known that the Palestinian leaders have incited to kill Jews. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas even admitted that the terrorists “did what the Palestinian Authority ordered them to do” and Mohammed Dahlan confirmed that “Forty percent of the Martyrs in this Intifada belonged to the Palestinian security forces … and that the Palestinian Authority has hidden Hamas members against Israeli counter-actions.”

Those who still have doubts should see these videos.

The incitement begins in schools. Between 1994 and 2012, the European Union provided 5.6 billion euros to assist the P.A. During 2014-15, a total of more than €390 million has been allocated to the P.A. through Pegase Direct Financial Support (DFS). The aim of Pegase DFS is to assist the P.A. to meet its obligations towards its civil servants, pensioners and vulnerable families; maintain essential public services; improve public finances; and pay teachers’ salaries. Among the civil servants and pensioners who received payments from Pegase DFS during 2014 and 2015, 67 percent were working in Health and Education. 

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Germany: When a Nazi comparison makes sense: the BDS movement against Israel

Via The Hill (Benjamin Weinthal and Asaf Romirowsky):

In a remarkable finding in their May report, intelligence officials of the German state of Baden Württemberg wrote that propaganda from the neo-Nazi party Der Dritte Weg (The Third Way) calling to boycott Israeli products “roughly recalls similar measures against German Jews by the National Socialists, for example, on April 1, 1933 (the slogan: 'Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!')"

The historical significance of the parallel between contemporary calls to boycott Israeli products and the Hitler movement’s economic warfare against German Jewish businesses should not be ignored.

The Nazi efforts to strangle Jewish companies in order to isolate and dehumanize German Jews was a nascent phase of the Holocaust. Hence the boycott campaign against Israel is just another dangerous recurrence of history in a new form.

Fast forward to 2005: According to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s declaration targeting the Jewish state, a key demand is the return of all “Palestinian refugees” to Israel. The “return” of the alleged millions of Palestinians refugees—based on a bogus definition of refugee status—would spell dissolution of the Jewish state. Anti-Semitism at its core is about discrimination against Jews.

The proliferation of pro-BDS activities in Germany prompted Felix Klein, the German government commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, to write in the daily Die Welt in August that “the BDS movement is antisemitic in its methods and goals.” He added that BDS’s “Don’t buy!” stickers on products from the Jewish state are “methods from the Nazi period.”

According to the German intelligence report from May, boycotts of products from the Jewish state are a “new variation of anti-Semitism.” This is the first instance of a domestic intelligence agency labeling boycotts targeting Israeli products as anti-Semitic and a security threat.

The following month, in June, an intelligence report from the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate arrived at the same conclusion. “The Third Way’s slogan ‘Boycott Products from Israel’ and … betray significant parallels to the anti-Jewish agitation of the National Socialists,” the agency wrote.

The intelligence agency copied a graphic from The Third Way’s website featuring the slogan, “Boycott products from Israel: 729=Made in Israel.” The number 729 is used in barcodes to identify Israel-based companies, although not necessarily where a product was manufactured.

It is worth noting that the party platform of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union declared in 2016, “Who today under the flag of the BDS movement calls to boycott Israeli goods and services speaks the same language in which people were called to not buy from Jews. That is nothing other than coarse anti-Semitism.”

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Germany: Top German social democrat urges bank to end Israel boycott support

Via The Jersusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Michaela Engelmeier, a member of the executive board of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, demanded that the Bank for Social Economy stop providing accounts to groups that support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against the Jewish state.

“My opinion is that no one, no institution, no societal group, really no one should work together with BDS or hold accounts for these antisemitic groups,” Engelmeier wrote The Jerusalem Post on Thursday in connection with a query about the Bank for Social Economy’s enabling of BDS.

The Cologne-based Bank for Social Economy is engulfed in an ever-widening anti-Israel scandal because of its defense of BDS groups which use accounts with the bank to launch economic warfare against the Jewish state.

Engelmeier’s call for the bank to stop its BDS business is the first instance of a federal-level politician in Germany weighing in on the bank.

The increase of pro-BDS activities in Germany prompted Felix Klein, the German government commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, to write in Die Welt last week that Frankfurt sent an important signal that it will not conduct business with banks that engage in BDS activities.

Klein wrote that “the BDS movement is antisemitic in its methods and goals.” He added that BDS’s “Don’t buy!” stickers on products from the Jewish state are “methods from the Nazi period.”

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Greece: Turkey’s rise sparks new friendship between Israel and Greece

Via The Wall Street Journal:

It’s hard to find a better example of how geopolitical realities trump ideology than the blossoming friendship between Israel and Greece.

As the leader of Greece’s leftist Syriza party before gaining office in 2015, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called to expel Israel’s ambassador and close Greek ports to U.S. arms shipments heading to Israel.

Syriza’s leftist allies in Europe still demonize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government. Many of them back the boycott, sanctions and disinvestment campaign against Israel.  

Not Mr. Tsipras—who intensified cooperation with Israel instead. The leaders of Israel, Greece and Cyprus are holding regular trilateral summits—the fourth was in May—and the Israeli air force uses Greek airspace for training. The three countries, plus Egypt, are jointly developing the eastern Mediterranean’s natural-gas reserves.

The key reason for all this: Turkey. 

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Iceland: What do Icelanders really think about Israel? (video)

Via Rudy Rochman:

On the way to Iceland, I was told that many Icelanders were against Israel and that their media had been feeding them lies for years. I was also told that they had recently started a petition to boycott the Eurovision competition in Israel next year. 

Rudy Rochman Facebook

Ireland: Israel slams ‘immoral’ bill banning trade with settlements

Via The Times of Israel:

Israel on Wednesday slammed an Irish bill that would outlaw the sale and import of settlement-produced goods, saying it was “immoral” and encourages terrorism.

“The Embassy of Israel is concerned by bills that further the divisions between Israel and the Palestinians. Legislation, which promotes a boycott of any kind, should be rejected as it does nothing to achieve peace but rather empowers the Hamas terrorists as well as those Palestinians who refuse to come to the negotiating table,” Israel’s mission in Dublin said in a press release. (…)

The government in Dublin — known to be one of the most pro-Palestinian governments in Europe — is opposed to the law, arguing that it is not legally entitled to curtail trade with Israeli companies based in the settlements.

“The Irish Government has always condemned construction of illegal settlement,” Foreign Ministry Simon Coveney tweeted on Tuesday. “But this Bill asks Irish govt to do something it is not legally empowered to do — trade is an EU competence, not an Irish one. FF [Fianna Fáil — The Republican Party] knows this — so this move is both opportunist and irresponsible.”

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Germany: Ruhrtriennale festival reinvites BDS-supporters "Young Fathers" because they want to allow "different perspectives and narratives"

The British band "Young Fathers" was disinvited from the Ruhrtriennale festival after refusing to distance themselves from the "boycott, divestment and sanctions" movement, or BDS.  Now they've been reinvited, because the festival needs "to allow the different perspectives and narratives, because this openness is the dramaturgic credo of our programme."

The Ruhrtriennale festival's Artistic Director Stefanie Carp wrote as follows (via okayafrica):

Bochum, 21 June 2018 - The programme of the Ruhrtriennale is directed against racism, anti-Semitism and exclusion in every form and tells complex narratives. I consider it important to open up perspectives other than our Western ones, and thus to take the context of our international programme seriously. I do not wish to be part of a campaign, let alone hostage to a campaign.

The programme of the Ruhrtriennale and the artists of this programme are currently under pressure from two campaigns. One says: artists who support organisations that oppose the current policy of the government of the Israeli state and support the rights of the Palestinians are automatically anti-Semitic. The second campaign is the BDS campaign, which says that artists who do not boycott the current government of the State of Israel are automatically suspected of being racist or opponents of the Palestinians. I do not share any of the superficial, simplifying positions of these two campaigns. I wish to be able to invite a band such as the Young Fathers for their music and their lyrics although I personally completely reject the boycott strategy of the BDS. As a German, it is, of course, difficult for me to be linked to a movement that boycotts Israel, but I have invited the Young Fathers and not the BDS. In many interviews, the Young Fathers have made it credible that they reject anti-Semitism in any form. Following the impression of many discussions and reflections over the last few days, I would like to correct my approach: I wish to invite the Young Fathers again to the concert in Bochum on 18 August 2018 although I do not share their attitude to the BDS. I believe that we need to allow the different perspectives and narratives, because this openness is the dramaturgic credo of our programme. I therefore have to defend the freedom of the arts, and do not, under any circumstances, even indirectly, wish to exercise censorship.

I again wish to stress that, in my view, criticism of the current policy of the government of the State of Israel is not automatically anti-Semitic. None of the artists at this year's programme of the Ruhrtriennale are anti-Semitic or racist. I personally reject boycott in connection with Israel, but also in other contexts, and especially in the field of art. Artists do not represent nations or ideological discourses.

I do not, however, want artists to be censored, lectured or excluded for their attitudes. Every artist is free to take up a position as long as this position is not anti-Semitic, racist or exclusionary. I wish to initiate a public event on the topic of boycott, freedom of the arts and the differences of perspectives, the place, time and implementation of which we will announce. Perhaps such an event could be held in the context of the concert, and the band could preferably represent its own position there.

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Spain: 50 Spanish cities and regions have passed motions condemning Israel

Via Gatestone Institute (Soeren Kern):

Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain, has approved a motion to boycott Israel and slander it by declaring the city an "Israeli apartheid-free zone." The move comes days after Navarra, one of Spain's 17 autonomous communities, announced a similar measure. In all, more than 50 Spanish cities and regions have passed motions condemning Israel. The proliferating anti-Israel activism, driven by the rise to power of the political far-left, is establishing Spain as the EU member state most hostile towards the Jewish state.

The Valencian measure, introduced by the far-left party València en Comú, was approved during a plenary session of the city council on May 31. The motion, which commits the city to refrain from engaging in business contacts or cultural events with Israeli authorities or companies, aims at establishing Valencia as "a global reference for solidarity with the Palestinians."

The motion, which libelously describes Israel as an "apartheid regime," accuses the Jewish state of "colonialism," "racism," "ethnic cleansing," "tyranny," and "genocide." The measure, which claims to reflect the "dignity, solidarity and justness" of the Valencian people, was introduced by Neus Fábregas Santana, a city councilor whose Twitter feed reveals an obsession with demonizing and delegitimizing Israel.

Santana works closely with a group called BDS País Valencia, the local branch of a worldwide movement trying to delegitimize Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.

BDS País Valencia is currently promoting a Spanish documentary about the Gaza Strip called "Gas the Arabs," a title that alleges, falsely, that the Jews in Israel are doing to the Arabs today what the Nazis in Germany did to the Jews during the Second World War. 

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Spain: Shop declares "This space is clean of Israeli apartheid"

Via Emmanuel Nahshon @ Twitter:

Seen in Spain on a shop window-“ This space is clean of Israeli apartheid-Bds”. Let there be no doubt - BDS and its supporters are filthy Antisemites. This shop window belongs to Nazi Germany.

Germany/UK: Munich mayor accuses Rogers Waters of antisemitism

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Mayor Dieter Reiter

Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter slammed Roger Waters, co-founder of the British band Pink Floyd, for his stoking of antisemitism against Israel, triggering an angry reaction from the singer on Friday.

Waters’s attorney demanded that Reiter delete his press statement accusing Waters of antisemitism. Reiter said Waters is responsible for “growing, intolerable antisemitic statements.”  

Reiters office said a city attorney will review Water's request.

Waters performed a concert on Wednesday in Munich’s Olympic Hall. Reiter said it was not possible to prevent the hall from being rented to Waters. However, Reiter said the Olympic Hall will not be rented to Waters in the future, due to his advocacy of the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state.

Reiter said it “is important for me to make it unmistakably clear ahead of the concert that antisemitic propaganda of Roger Waters is neither welcome in Munich nor will it remain unanswered.”

The Munich city council passed a resolution that the mayor supported last year barring space in public facilities and finances for pro-BDS activity. Munich was the first German city to pass anti-BDS legislation.

Waters’s lawyer said Reiter’s allegations resemble a call to boycott him.

Waters himself has previously said he was the victim of the “Jewish lobby” that was “extraordinarily powerful.”

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Spain: In first, a Spanish state adopts BDS as policy

Via JTA:

Navarre became the first state in Spain to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. 

The motion voted on last month in Navarre, in northern Spain, received the support of all the parties represented in parliament except the center-right Popular Party, the ACOM pro-Israel advocacy wrote in a statement Friday. 

The motion passed on May 21 calls on the central government to “support any initiative promoted by the international BDS campaign.” It also calls on Spain to “suspend its ties with Israel “until that country ceases its policy of criminal repression of the Palestinian population.” 

Navarre is one of 17 autonomous communities — states with their own parliaments — that together make up quasi-federal Spain.  

Catalonia’s parliament last year declared independence from Spain, though Madrid declined to recognize the declaration. Navarre has a substantial Basque population and a strong separatist movement. 

The motion went on to condemn Israel for “murdering” dozens of Palestinians in May — a reference to those killed by Israeli forces during Hamas-organized riots along the Gaza border that featured hundreds of firebombs and attempts to breach the security fence into Israel. Of 61 people killed in the riots on May 14, 50 were Hamas members, according to one senior member of that organization.

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UK: Israel doesn't get hurt by BDS, the Jews of the Diaspora do

Via David Collier:

"Israel doesn't get hurt by BDS, the Jewish student on campus does. The Jewish man running a business in Aberdeen does. Those attending the Israeli film festival in London do. These are the people #BDS affect. BDS radicalises its followers and hurts only the Jews of the Diaspora." 

"Students are scared to wear Jewish symbols, the guy in Aberdeen is forced out of business with his workers harassed and Jewish theatre goers face hostile crowds or a denial of the right to choose what they see. Anti Jewish Fascists operate in the UK under the BDS banner." 

"A guy is hounded in Aberdeen, his workers have been harassed, anyone attending Israeli related film festivals / the shalom festival or orchestras face hostile crowds upon entry & I saw lines of fascists yell 'shame' at students at a campus event."

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Europeans said boycotting Foreign Ministry event celebrating new US embassy

Via The Times of Israel:

European diplomats will reportedly skip a Foreign Ministry event next week marking the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem in protest of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.

Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inviting the entire foreign diplomatic corps to Sunday’s event, many European envoys, including those from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, will boycott the ceremony, Hadashot TV news reported Wednesday.

“It is a little strange to invite us to celebrate an event that we opposed and condemned. The Americans were more clever and knew in advance not to invite us to save themselves from embarrassment,” the network quoted a diplomatic source as saying. 

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Germany: Gov't company fires employee for 'antisemitic' social media posts

Via Jerusalem Post:

The German Corporation for International Cooperation said on Friday that it had fired one employee and disciplined two additional workers in response to scores of allegations of antisemitic Facebook posts by the company's staff, including at their location in Jordan, which were first revealed by The Jerusalem Post.

"Meetings were held with the eight employees whose posts had been criticized to clarify each specific case, and the outcome was carefully considered on an individual basis. As a result, there has been a dismissal, a written warning and a reprimand," said the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) in a statement.

(...)

The GIZ headquarters is located in the West German city of Bonn and it describes itself as a "federal enterprise with worldwide operations. We support the German Government in the fields of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education. Through our work, we assist people and societies in shaping their own future and improving living conditions."

Mohammed al-Mutawakel, who is currently a project manager at GIZ's headquarters in Bonn and was previously a project manager in Jordan, compared Israel to the Nazi movement. He posted an Israeli flag on Facebook and replaced the Star of David with a swastika. “I hate Israel,” he wrote. GIZ declined to disclose to the Post if al-Mutawakel had been fired and would not provide the name of the other disciplined employees.

Ulrich Nitschke, a senior GIZ employee in the Middle East, praised, according to the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, the nomination of the BDS movement for the Nobel Peace Prize. The BDS movement advocates boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.

Tobias Thiel, who heads GIZ's Strengthening Reform Initiatives project, said Israel does not have the right to defend itself and shared articles that Israel committed a “deliberate massacre” in the Gaza Strip.

Prior to the GIZ decision to discipline employees, the whistle-blower, who wished to remain anonymous, said GIZ's workplace culture is saturated with antisemitism. The source told the Post that Rudolf Rogg, who oversees the corporation's Middle East department, has “three Facebook accounts with anti-Israeli agitation.”

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Ireland: Capital's city council endorses boycott and mayor seems to endorse Palestinian mufti who met Hitler

He is the sort of person so many Europeans pick to represent them...

Via The Times of Israel:

The Foreign Ministry on Thursday rebuked the Irish ambassador to Israel, days after the Dublin City Council passed two anti-Israel resolutions and the city’s mayor attended a conference in Ramallah that appeared to praise the Palestinian mufti Amin al-Husseini, who in 1941 met with Adolf Hitler.

The ministry said its deputy director-general for European Affairs, Rodica Radian Gordon, expressed to Ambassador Alison Kelly her “astonishment and deep disappointment” over the fact that Dublin’s Lord Mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha had chosen to participate in a “blatantly anti-Israel event.”

“This is particularly disturbing in light of the event’s timing, in the week in which Israel observes Holocaust Remembrance Day,” the ministry said in a statement. “The government of Israel expects a public and official Irish response to the conduct of the city council of Ireland’s capital in general, and of its head in specific, which are conducting a campaign of discrimination and hatred against the State of Israel.” (...)

Earlier this week, Dublin’s city council passed two resolutions endorsing the anti-Israel boycott movement and calling on the national government to expel the Israeli ambassador.

As a result of those votes, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said Tuesday that he would bar Mac Donncha from entering Israel on his way to to a conference on the status of Jerusalem in Ramallah, at the invitation of the Palestinian Authority.

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German diplomats defend Kuwait Airways’ 'no Israelis allowed' policy

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

German diplomats have said accusations of antisemitism against Kuwait Airways for its practice of refusing Israeli passengers are exaggerated, triggering sharp criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a German lawyer who sued the airline.

The statement defending state-owned Kuwait Airways was first reported by the Düsseldorf-based business daily Handelsblatt on Monday.

A court in Frankfurt ruled in November that Kuwait Airways was within its rights to refuse service to an Israeli citizen. The Israeli in the lawsuit had booked a flight on Kuwait Airways from Frankfurt to Bangkok.

Katharina Ziegler, a German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, declined to comment on the record in response to a query from The Jerusalem Post addressed to Heiko Maas, the new foreign minister. Maas has promised improved German-Israel relations after the anti-Israel policies of his predecessor, Sigmar Gabriel. Germany’s Foreign Ministry is widely viewed as one of the harshest critics of the Jewish state within Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration. The US- and EU-designated terrorist entity Hamas praised Gabriel in January for terming Israel an “apartheid regime.”

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Spain: Pro-Israel entity taken to court in Spain

Via JTA (Cnaan Liphshiz):

The Committee for Solidarity with the Arab Cause, which receives funding from several municipalities in Spain, filed the criminal lawsuit against Angel Mas of the ACOM group last month, he told JTA. A judge examined the 70-page lawsuit against Mas and ACOM and concluded it merited further judicial review, Mas said.

It marks the first time that pro-Israel entities are being taken to court in Spain for their activities and a departure from the strategy of the local Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, or BDS.

Mas added he was “surprised and disappointed” by the judge’s decision to review what Mas called “a frivolous attempt to abuse the Spanish judiciary with propaganda.” But he added that he was confident that he would be found not guilty in any trial.

At least seven municipalities in Spain have scrapped their endorsements of BDS under threat from ACOM alone, the group said. Another 14 have seen tribunals cancel their pro-BDS resolutions and another two had those resolutions suspended by an injunction pending a final court ruling.

“Having suffered crippling losses in court, the BDS movement in Spain is switching methods,” Mas said. “They are targeting individuals in a smear campaign in an attempt to render Spanish Jews and Israel defenseless. This will not succeed.”

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Portuguese MEP says EJC is lying and smearing her

Background: Portuguese MP invites Omar Barghouti, founder of anti-Israel BDS, to EU parliament, Jewish groups protest and Portugal/EU: Another Israel-bashing pro-BDS event at the European Parliament

European Jewish Congress:

Please ask Mr. Barghouti tomorrow what he understands under #RightOfReturn Which Palestinian state is he advocating for, what role does Israel play in that scenario, does he accept borders of 48 & what are his stands on #Hamas? Answers are online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYvpsGd8K4Y …

MEP Ana Gomes (member of ruling Socialist Party, Portugal):

He doesn’t, you’re selectively quoting him out of context. But lots of young Palestinians are calling for it, pushed into that desperate corner by the destructive illegal Israeli occupation which makes unviable a democratic State in Palestine, in their view. 

European Jewish Congress:

Why do you want to discuss this with #Barghouti who explicitly calls for one-state solution?

MEP Ana Gomes (member of ruling Socialist Party, Portugal):

Yr smear campaign won’t work: I’m against #antisemitism & any form of #racism. I’m against those who want to destroy #Israel. That is why we need to discuss @EP impact of Israeli settlements/illegal occupation in #Palestine: that’s what is discrediting & threatening #Israel.

Transatlantic Inst.:

A "perverse lobby" is allegedly spreading lies, to supposedly silence her, says @AnaGomes MEP. We assume this outrageous insult, under @TheProgressives banner, is directed at us & other Jewish organizations protesting her invitation to extremist BDS founder Barghouti.