Israel Prepares BDS Blacklist, Includes Amnesty International

Israeli Knesset. (Photo: Itzik Edri, Wikipedia)

The Israeli government is currently preparing a blacklist of the local and international organizations and activists who call for boycotting Israeli institutions, products and events, local media sources revealed yesterday.

On Sunday, the Israeli Ministerial Committee on Legislation passed a law against activists who encourage the international boycott of Israel, under which they are likely to be sued or fined.

Israel Hayom quoted legal officials yesterday describing the blacklist as “a database of the boycotting organizations, which can be prosecuted under the new law.”

According to the amended law, “a body or person who encourages any sort of boycott of Israel or Israeli institutions simply for being Israeli is liable to be sued for 100,000 shekels [$28,280] without proof of damages, and for 500,000 shekels [$142,500] if tangible damage is proven to have been caused.”

According to the agency, the blacklist includes Amnesty International, which has called on its website, in international ads, and on its Facebook page for all countries to boycott products from the occupied West Bank, and to impose a weapons embargo on the Jewish state, claiming that Israel is guilty of war crimes and that the settlements constitute a war crime.

The list also includes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, the world’s most widely spread movement that calls for boycotting Israel. BDS was established in 2005 with the aim to end the international support for Israel’s oppression against the Palestinians and to pressure Israel to comply with international law.

(MEMO, PC, Social Media)

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