“Behind the Mask” – Unmasking Antisemitism Behind the BDS Campaign

A new report from the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, presented today in the European Parliament in Brussels, reveals how BDS promotes antisemitism in Western countries unimpeded, in clear violation of internationally accepted definitions of antisemitism

Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy, Israel – 4iL

September 15, 2019

The State of Israel “drinks the blood of Palestinian children to drink it before Passover, poisons Palestinian wells and harvests their organs, controls the world through the greedy and powerful Jewish lobby, and has no right to exist.” These are just some of the quotes exposed in a new report presented today by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs to the European Union Parliament in Brussels. At the event, the Minister of Strategic Affairs, Gilad Erdan, revealed the findings of a report titled “Behind the Mask,” exposing how the boycott campaign against Israel became a generator of both classic and modern antisemitism. The report also shows how the BDS violates the international definition of antisemitism of the IHRA – The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an accepted definition adopted by 18 western countries, including EU institutions.

The report lists some 100 examples of how antisemitism is rooted in the ideology of the boycott movement and its practices. The BDS campaign regularly uses classic antisemitic tropes to present Jews and Israelis, (big-nosed monsters, sidelocks, Satanic symbols, dollar signs, as pigs, octopuses and other beasts controlling the world), alongside modern antisemitic tropes (comparing Israel’s actions and very existence to Nazi Germany, and denial of its existence).

In May of this year the German parliament made a unprecedented decision calling the “patterns and arguments” of the BDS campaign antisemitic. The resolution emphasizes that the boycott campaign, leads to the repression of citizens of the State of Israel and Jews in general. This decision represents a watershed moment in the discourse of leaders and governments in the West, which in recent years have drawn more attention to the link between the BDS movement and antisemitism.

In February of this year the Ministry of Strategic Affairs released the report “Terrorists in Suits”, which revealed more than 100 links between leading boycott organizations, with designated terrorist organizations, among them Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Following the report, several European countries have arrested and/or expelled BDS activists, canceled BDS events, and closed BDS connected accounts. “Behind the Mask” continues the efforts of the Minister of Strategic Affairs to uncover the real faces of BDS organizations who hide behind a mask of “human rights” and promote an extreme, antisemitic and terrorist agenda that undermines the right of the State of Israel to exist.

The Minister for Strategic Affairs, Gilad Erdan: “Today we have proven beyond a doubt that BDS is an anti-Semitic campaign led by supporters of terror with one purpose: the elimination of the Jewish State. I urge Western countries not to take part in the anti-Semitic lies of BDS, not to legitimize its racism, and surely not fund it.”

Read in full: “Behind the Mask” – Unmasking Antisemitism Behind the BDS Campaign