BDS condemns Arab participation in Zionist conference in New York

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) strongly condemned on Tuesday Arab participation in a Zionist conference held in New York about the threat posed by Iran, Arab48.com has reported.

The movement claims that the UAE ambassador to the USA, Yousef Al-Otaibi, Bahrain’s former ambassador Sheikha Haya Rashid Al-Khalifa, the Saudi academic Mohamed Al-Yahya and the Lebanese researcher Toni Badran took part in the conference, which was also attended by former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

“The silence of the Arab governments regarding the participation of their ambassadors and their official and non-official representatives in normalisation meetings with Israel and the Zionist lobby is disgraceful complicity in supporting an Israeli agenda,” said BDS in a media statement. It noted that the Israeli regime is seeking to normalise relations in the Arab world in order to “liquidate” the Palestinian issue and crack down on “all forms of resistance” against the Israeli “occupational, apartheid, racist and colonial regime.”

Addressing the Arab people, the BDS statement called for the escalation of the boycott of Israel and companies involved in its violations against “our rights”, mainly G4S, HP and Alstom. It also called for escalating the pressure on the Arab regimes which are complicit with the Israeli occupation in order to stop this “obscene normalisation”.