The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is celebrating today after a British court ruled that government guidelines prohibiting Local Government Pension Schemes from divesting from Israeli firms were unlawful.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign took the government to court over the rule, which stated that “public procurement should never be used as a tool to boycott tenders from suppliers based in other countries, except where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the UK Government. "Such boycotts, the government explained, “can damage integration and community cohesion within the United Kingdom, hinder Britain’s export trade, and harm foreign relations to the detriment of Britain’s economic and international security.”
According to the Jewish Chronicle, Palestine Solidarity Campaign chair Hugh Lanning called the ruling a “victory for Palestine, for local democracy and for the rule of law.”
A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the UK affiliate of the World Jewish Congress, said: “This was a decision reached on technical legal grounds. It was decided that guidance exceeded the permissible purpose. We are examining ways in which the guidance can to be re-issued in a way that complies with the legal rules.”
BDS was loudly advocated at this Sunday’s Quds Day march in London, an event at which anti-Israel activists waved flags belonging to the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah and accused the Jewish state of perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians.
World Jewish Congress President Amb. Ronald Lauder has consistently called the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel a “modern form of anti-Semitism” intended to destroy Israel.
“BDS tries to present itself as some sort of democratic movement concerned with human rights. That’s a lie. On the contrary, BDS is an international campaign to incite hostility toward Israel and the Jewish people.”
Twenty US states have passed laws prohibiting local government agencies from doing business with companies engaged in boycotting Israel.
