Israel is pushing back against the boycott movement and their ties to terror. Israeli flags. Illustrative. By Joshua Spurlock
Organizations in the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement against Israel are trying to harm the Jewish State financially in an effort to achieve anti-Israel political goals. Recently, Israel’s government and partner groups have turned the tables on them, exposing the links between dozens of those groups to terrorists and pushing financial entities to close their accounts. So far, 30 financial accounts of such anti-Israel organizations have been shut down, according to an Israeli press release.
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan, in a press release by his ministry on Monday, said, “boycott promoters” raised tens of millions of euros from Western countries by disguising themselves as “human rights activists”. Now, the truth comes out.
“We have revealed that the supposed ‘human rights’ NGOs are in reality, filled with anti-Semitic operatives with deep ties to terrorist groups fixated on destroying the State of Israel,” Erdan was quoted as saying. “As a result of our actions, countries and financial institutions are now distancing themselves from these organizations. Our efforts have drastically undermined the boycott campaign, leading to it having much less finances to operate, and barred from receiving financial services.”
The press release said the Israeli campaign to close financial accounts of such groups has been ongoing for the past two years, leading to the closing of 10 accounts in the United States and twenty in Europe. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs released their “Terrorists in Suits” report that disclosed links between terror groups such as Hamas the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and BDS-promoting organizations.
One example in Monday’s press release was Samidoun, which had three accounts—including one with Paypal—closed thanks to work by The International Legal Forum. The Terrorists in Suits report revealed not only that Samidoun had links to the PFLP, but that their two representatives in Europe were PFLP members. One of them even had been released from an Israeli prison where he had been serving time for, among other things, receiving training from the Hezbollah terror group.
The Ministry of Strategic Affairs noted in the press release that “the closure of the accounts has disrupted Samidoun’s ability to carry out its activities and has significantly harmed their fundraising efforts.”
The press release listed other examples, including one in which the BDS National Committee not only had their DonorBox account shut down due to terrorist connections, but when the group tried to open a new account on Charityweb, that account was also closed within hours.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, June 10, 2019)