Israeli FM lobbies US lawmakers to tackle anti-Israel boycotts

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told US lawmakers during their visit to Israel on September 16th that his country is facing “a coordinated global effort…to eliminate” it, according to the Middle East Eye.

Saar lobbied 250 American lawmakers to seek anti-Boycott legislation, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), saying that Israel and its allies abroad needed to push back against the boycotts.

This plea comes amid Israeli officials saying that the nation is becoming increasingly isolated within the international community.

Saar accused Israel’s “enemies” of having turned to “propaganda, political, legal and economic warfare” through BDS, a movement that claims its goal is to “pressure Israel to comply with international law” and challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism”.

He continued: “The best answer against BDS, until this day – has been anti-BDS legislation by your states.”

The visit featured both Democrat and Republican lawmakers from all fifty states, and followed a high-profile visit to Israel from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the aftermath of Israel’s September 9th attack on the US’s non-NATO ally Qatar.

The delegation, which was the biggest in Israel to date, was welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 15th.

Netanyahu also raised concerns over an “active effort” to stop US support for Israel, alluding to Israel being under “siege” and reiterating earlier statements that “Israel is in a sort of isolation.”

Since October 2023, Israel has faced increased scrutiny over its war on Gaza, which has reportedly killed more than 64,700 Palestinians.

However, ex-Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi, admitted that the actual death toll in Gaza exceeds 200,000 casualties.

Halevi was reported to have made these comments at a community meeting in south Israel.

Halevi led Israel’s military campaign in Gaza for the first 17 months, before resigning as chief of staff in March this year, following security failures concerning the October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

On September 16th, the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, with senior officials, such as Netanyahu, facing accusations of orchestrating a campaign of genocide.

The UN report cited large-scale killings, aid obstructions, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic among evidence that Israel has created conditions designed to make life unlivable in Gaza.

Daniel Meron, the Israeli ambassador to the UN in Geneva, called the report “scandalous” and “fake”, while denouncing the writers of the report as “Hamas proxies”.

Israeli attacks on Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Qatar have unnerved US Arab allies, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, of which the US have long sought to be united with Israel.

Repercussions for Israel’s actions have started to reverberate in Europe, with Norway divesting its $1.9 trillion sovereign wealth fund – which is the biggest in the world – from US construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc, in August.

In June, the shipping company Maersk declared that it would be divesting from companies tied to illegal Israeli settlements within the occupied West Bank.

The decision to divest followed months of an ongoing campaign from pro-Palestine activists who demanded that the shipping giant severs relations with companies capitalizing from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The BDS movement started two decades ago as a non-violent means of protest in the face of Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine.

The campaign was modelled under the strategy that stopped Apartheid in South Africa. The movement urges companies and individuals to no longer do business with Israel.

The movement has received intense pushback in the US, with 38 states having some form of anti-BDS law that stops a company or an individual from getting government contracts, if they express an anti-Israel position.

Middle East Eye, Maghrebi.org