German antisemitism commissioner praises verdict against BDS activist
“Monday’s court decision against an activist of the antisemitic BDS movement... is an important success against the violent character of BDS and its supporters."
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, also known as BDS.(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Hesse commissioner to combat antisemitism lauded a Berlin court decision convicting a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement activist for assault.“Monday’s court decision against an activist of the antisemitic BDS movement for assaulting people during a presentation by an Israeli survivor of the Holocaust at Humboldt University in Berlin is an important success against the violent character of BDS and its supporters,” Uwe Becker told The Jerusalem Post.On Monday Stavit Sinai was found guilty of inflicting violence on people at the talk. According to reports, she hit the door of the hall “wildly” from the outside, injuring two people. She is required to pay either €450, or face a prison term of 30 days.“In two ways, this decision is an important milestone in the fight against Israel-related antisemitism in Germany,” Becker said. “It unmasks the violent character of the BDS movement, because it shows that even Holocaust survivors are attacked by BDS when they speak out for the Jewish state. So it makes clear that the aim of BDS is not about peaceful protest against political decisions in Israel but the aim is the destruction and delegitimization of the Jewish state by all means.“Secondly, this act of violence shows that BDS is not defending freedom of speech but BDS is trying to suppress any other opinion that is not compatible with the political agenda of BDS.“It makes clear that BDS is lying about their history when they want to present themselves as a Palestinian human rights movement. They are lying about their aims, when they proclaim the borders of 1967 as their major goal, and they are lying about their means when they want to present themselves as a peaceful movement.”The Post reported in 2017 that three allegedly antisemitic BDS activists – Sinai, Ronnie Barkan and Majed Abusalama – stormed the Humboldt University in Berlin to disrupt a talk titled “Life in Israel – Terror, Bias and the Chances for Peace” by then-Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie and Deborah Weinstein, an Israeli Holocaust survivor, now 85.Berlin’s domestic intelligence agency, which documents threats to the democratic order of the city-state, deemed the conduct of the BDS activists to be antisemitic in its 2018 report. Last year, the Bundestag declared BDS to be an antisemitic movement.Becker said the court’s decision is an “important signal that the fight against the antisemitic BDS movement is more and more successful. And it shows that it is important to unmask BDS and to help society to look behind the curtain of this dirty theater.“We have to [go] from BDS to promote BIS, ‘Buy from, Invest in and Support the State of Israel.’”
