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Jerusalem – The United States is moving toward classifying the Boycott Israel movement and any party that supports it as an anti-Semitic organization, as confirmed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his ongoing visit to Tel Aviv.
Pompeo announced during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Jerusalem on Thursday that Washington intends to classify the BDS movement and any party that supports it as an anti-Semitic organization, describing that movement as a “cancer.” .
He stressed that the time has come to take this step, pledging to take punitive action against any organization calling for a boycott of the Jewish state, adding that the Trump administration in the past four years has demonstrated its support for Israel more than any administration. former American nation, and will intensify its activities against efforts to isolate Israel economically. And diplomatically.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli authorities would take immediate steps to identify the organizations involved in “the despicable behavior of the BDS movement and will raise the support of the US government against them.”
“We will consider the BDS campaign against Israel to be anti-Semitic,” he added.
Supporters of the Boycott Israel Campaign condemned this characterization, saying they opposed all forms of racism.
The movement posted on its official website and social media pages a comment on Pompeo’s remarks, saying that “the extremist Trump-Netanyahu alliance in its racism and hostility towards the Palestinian people deliberately mixes the rejection of the Israeli occupation regime against the Palestinians and the call to boycott it on the one hand and anti-Jewish racism on the other. “
The movement considered that the American movements took place “with the objective of suppressing and silencing the calls and movements in support of Palestinian rights under international law.”
“It is ironic that the Trump administration, under the incitement and cover of Israeli settler colonialism and the apartheid regime, continues to enable and normalize white supremacy and anti-Jews and others in the United States and around the world, while at the while trying to discredit the BDS movement, “the comment said.
The movement emphasized its consistent and principled rejection of all forms of racism, including racism against Jews.
On February 6, 2019, the US Senate voted in favor of a draft resolution that allows federal or local governments to take measures including divestment and impose sanctions against any entity or government that participates in the activities. of the Boycott Israel movement, known internationally as “BDS”.
According to its official website, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a worldwide movement of Palestinian origin that seeks to resist Israeli occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid, in order to achieve freedom, justice and equality in Palestine, leading to the right to self-determination for all the Palestinian people in the Homeland and diaspora.
The movement’s demands address the rights of all components of the historic Palestinian people, from the Palestinians of the 1948 lands to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, to the camps and the diaspora, which the Israeli settlement has divided into stages. .
The Boycott Israel (BDS) movement initially succeeded in isolating the Israeli regime academically, culturally, politically, and to some extent also economically, until this regime now regards the movement as one of the greatest “strategic dangers” it faces.
In 2005, more than 170 components of Palestinian popular unions, unions, parties, popular committees and civil institutions participated in the launch of the Boycott Israel movement and called on the peoples of the world to withdraw investments and impose sanctions to achieve a series of demands. , including: ending Israel’s occupation and colonizing all Palestinian and Arab lands and dismantling The Wall, ending all forms of apartheid against Palestinians and their recognition of the basic right to full equality for Palestinians from the 1948 territories, in addition to respecting, protecting and supporting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were expelled and to regain their properties, as stipulated in Resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly.
The US Secretary of State announced during the press conference that he would visit the occupied Golan Heights, in a move that marks the Trump administration’s departure from the policies of previous US administrations regarding the Golan.
In 2019, Washington recognized Israel’s right to sovereignty over parts of the Golan that it occupied from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, and subsequently annexed it, in a move not recognized by the United Nations and most of the community. international.
Pompeo said during his visit to Jerusalem: “Today I will have the opportunity to visit the Golan Heights. President Trump’s decision (in 2019) to recognize it as part of Israel was also a decision of historical importance that simply represents an acknowledgment of reality. “.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Pompeo’s visit to the Golan, considering that the US Secretary of State’s visit “to the occupied territories is a real participation in this occupation, which is a visit condemned and rejected.”
Israel says the Golan Heights, which border northern Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, are a bulwark against Syria and the Iranian forces stationed there.
The Golan is a strategically important mountainous region in southern Syria. Israel occupied it on a large scale in 1967 and annexed it in 1981, which is not recognized internationally. Under international law, the Golan Heights remains Syrian territory occupied by Israel.
In 2019, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, tweeting: “After 52 years, the time has come for the United States to recognize the full sovereignty of Israel on the Golan Heights, which is of vital strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability. “
Damascus condemned the US move and demanded in a letter to the United Nations on Friday “to issue an unequivocal official position, by which it affirms the firm position of the international organization with regard to the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Arab Golan.”
