Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked branded the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement a form of “terrorism”, in remarks made yesterday.
Speaking at a Jewish National Fund (JNF) conference in New York, the hardline right-wing minister compared the BDS campaign to tunnels under the Gaza border fence.
“Sometimes the BDS movement’s funding sources are identical to those funding the terrorist organisations,” Shaked claimed, adding: “This is the new face of terrorism.”
The minister claimed that while “criticism of Israel is legitimate”, criticism “that attempts to undermine Israel’s right to exist is illegitimate.”
Therefore, Shaked said: “The BDS is illegitimate. I define it thus: BDS is another branch of terrorism in the modern age.”
Speaking to a primarily Jewish American audience, Shaked regretted that “there are also some young Jewish liberals who get confused and are led astray by this movement.”
“They swallow the lies that the Palestinian propaganda disseminates. They have fallen into this web and are not even aware of the fact that the mechanisms pulling the strings are terrorists from radical Islam.”