Netanyahu: “We Have Beaten” Boycott Campaign

Israel has defeated the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed at a Knesset hearing on Monday.

Under questioning from opposition Knesset members, Netanyahu defended his government’s handling of foreign relations despite serving as his own foreign minister since his reelection in March 2015. Netanyahu presented a color-coded map to illustrate the increasing number of nations that have forged (or are seeking) formal diplomatic relations with Israel. “People say we are isolated,” Netanyahu said. “What isolation are we talking about?”

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In a recent analysis for The Jerusalem Post, Benjamin Weinthal, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, illustrated Netanyahu’s point by describing a number of ways that the BDS campaign was suffering from “economic warfare with financial assaults.” Much of this stems from anti-BDS legislation passed by a growing number of states, including Illinois and New York, where multinational corporations have their headquarters. In one instance, the threat of being boycotted by New York state prompted Commerzbank, Germany’s second-largest bank, to close out an account held by Germany’s BDS campaign.

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