The Israeli regime has reacted angrily to plans by Qatar to support a global boycott campaign on the illegal Zionist entity.
Qatar has emerged as the main financial backer of a conference to review the aims of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign which opened in Tunis last Thursday.
BDS was founded a decade ago by Palestinian human rights activists and is supported by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, as well as leaders of the Palestinian resistant movement Hamas.
The group seeks to organise a global economic and cultural boycott of Israel in retaliation for its failure to negotiate a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Shortly after becoming Labour leader Mr Corbyn publicly declared his support for BDS, saying “I believe that sanctions against Israel…are the appropriate way of promoting the peace process.”
In Britain, BDS supporters have made repeated attempts to organise a boycott on importing Israeli goods, as well as trying to get Israeli academics banned from speaking on university campuses.
In June BDS claimed responsibility for persuading Kuwait to cancel its multi-million pound stake in the UK security firm G4S after claiming the company helps to run Israeli checkpoints on the West Bank, as well as running Israeli prisons holding Palestinian political prisoners.
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“This group has been trying to demonise Israel for the past decade,” said a senior Israeli government official.
“Now that it is receiving support from Qatar, it is clear they are going to renew their efforts to organise a global boycott against Israel.”
Relations between Israel and Qatar have become strained in recent years over the Gulf state’s close ties with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
At Thursday’s meeting in Tunis, which was being hosted by the Qatari-funded Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies, delegates were asked to review BDS’s attempts to organise a global boycott against Israel, as well as exploring ways to make the anti-Israeli boycott even more effective.
