Israeli foreign minister lobbies US state lawmakers to fight BDS
Israeli foreign minister lobbies US state lawmakers to fight BDS
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar lobbied 250 US state lawmakers on a visit to Israel to pursue anti-Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation, as Israel's leaders increasingly warn the country is becoming isolated on the global stage.
Saar on Tuesday told the lawmakers that Israel was subject to “a coordinated global effort…to eliminate the State of Israel” and that the country and its allies abroad had to push back.
He said Israel’s “enemies” had turned to “propaganda, political, legal and economic warfare” through the BDS movement, a movement that says its goal is to "pressure Israel to comply with international law" and challenge "international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism".
“The best answer against BDS, until this day - has been anti-BDS legislation by your states,” Saar said.
The visit included Democratic and Republican lawmakers from all fifty US states. It follows a high-profile visit to Israel by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, following Israel’s attack on the US’s major non-Nato ally, Qatar, last week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the delegation, which was the largest in the history of Israel, on Monday.
Netanyahu also alluded to an“active effort” to stop US support for Israel. He said Israel was under “siege”, reaffirming previous statements he made earlier that “Israel is in a sort of isolation”.
Increasingly isolated
Israel has seen its global standing erode over its genocide in Gaza, which has killed nearly 65,000 Palestinians, a number that critics say is a gross undercount.
Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Qatar have also unnerved the US’s Arab partners, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which the US has long sought to unite with Israel.
In Europe, Israel’s actions are starting to reverberate.
Norway's $1.9 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, divested in August from US construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc and five Israeli banks over human rights violations in Gaza.
Likewise, Shipping giant Maersk announced in June that it was divesting from companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The decision came after months of sustained pressure from pro-Palestine activists who demanded the behemoth shipping and logistics company cut ties with companies profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestine.
The official BDS movement was launched 20 years ago as a means of non-violent action in the face of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is modelled on the approach that ended Apartheid in South Africa.
The movement calls for companies and individuals to stop doing business with Israel, or at the very least, Israeli firms perpetuating the occupation of the West Bank and the genocide in Gaza.
In the US, there has been swift pushback against BDS from Israel and its supporters, where 38 states now have some measure of an anti-BDS law that prevents a company or an individual from receiving government contracts if they demonstrate an anti-Israel stance.
The BDS battle has often played out at the state and local level, reflecting Israel’s courtship of state lawmakers.
