WJC President Ronald Lauder's address at UN conference on BDS

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder addressed the plenary session of "Building Bridges, Not Boycotts," the international summit on the delegitimization of Israel at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

More than 1,500 students, dignitaries, public officials and representatives of Jewish organizations took part in a conference. The forum was organized by Israel’s Mission to the United Nations and the World Jewish Congress, along with a number of other partners. Addressing the opening plenary in the UN General Assembly Hall, WJC President Lauder pointed out that the United Nations, which had been “created on the broken bones of the Jewish people” after World War II, was now singling out the only Jewish state for criticism.

Click here for the full text of President Lauder's speech.

Lauder said the key to fighting the anti-Israel campaign was to tell the truth about Israel, and to expose what he called the hypocrisy of BDS activists “through every means possible.”

"I wonder if all those people that support BDS have the slightest understanding of what this movement really means. Those BDS supporters who join protest marches on campuses and chant: ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!’,” Lauder added. “I wonder if they realize that the River is the Jordan, the Sea is the Mediterranean. These activists are calling for the destruction of the State of Israel.

“Make no mistake. The BDS movement doesn’t support the Palestinian people. It is strictly a campaign to delegitimize Israel, which is simply the latest attempt to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination. Every other people on earth have that right, but BDS wants to deny that basic right to Jews,” declared Lauder. The WJC president pledged that the World Jewish Congress “will commit all of our resources, and all of our abilities, to help fight BDS."