EUJS is deeply concerned by the support and participation of MEP Clare Daly (IRE, GUE) in a webinar event taking place on Thursday 21st May entitled “Stop Settlements – On the Road to Justice in Palestine”. The webinar in question is being organised by the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine an organisation which supports the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement(1). Additionally, the webinar is also due to feature Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine; Dr. Anna Kdair, Advocacy Officer of Al-Haq and Professor Tom Moerenhout, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
BDS is a movement which, under the guise of support for the Palestinian cause, is deeply antisemitic in nature. Rather than a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via a two-state solution, BDS seeks the end of Israel, as the co-founder of BDS, Omar Barghouti has said “We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine”. BDS regularly targets Jewish Students in Europe, making them a target on campuses. EUJS has formally adopted a resolution to oppose the antisemitic BDS movement in all its forms. The targeting of the world’s only Jewish state is the defining characteristic of the BDS movement and a clear example as to why the movement is, indeed, antisemitic.
As mentioned, one of the panellists due to take part is Professor Michael Lynk, who himself has been the subject of several complaints and allegations of antisemitism. He has consistently pushed the ICC to pass legislation that would serve to isolate Israel from the international community as well as attempting to block former Western University President Paul Davenport from receiving the Jewish National Fund award and other examples of an antisemitic nature (2). His consistent and blatant one-sided view to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict manifests itself as an obessive need to consistently demonise and seek to deligitimise the world’s only Jewish state – requiring a behavior of Israel, which is not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation – an antisemitic example according to the widely-accepted IHRA working definition of antisemitism (3).
Among the other participants in the webinar is Dr. Anna Kdair, Legal Researcher and Advocacy officer of the organisation Al-Haq. An organisation which had credit card donations from Visa, Mastercard and American Express terminated due to its support for terrorist organisations (4). The terrorist organisation in question is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the PFLP, an organisation which the European Union itself designates as a terrorist group.
It is greatly alarming that MEP Daly should choose to align herself and share a platform with others who hold such antisemitic views and links to terrorist organisations. As such, we call upon MEP Daly to withdraw her participation from this event. Furthermore, we call upon the European Union to condemn the association being made in its name that a Member of Parliament is sharing a platform with antisemitic and terrorist-linked organisations.
(1) ECCP Brussels, 2020 <https://www.eccpalestine.org/about-us/>
(2) UN Watch, 2016 <https://unwatch.org/un-nominates-anti-israeli-professor-6-year-post-investigating-israels-violations/>
(3) IHRA, 2020, <https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/working-defin...>
(4) UKLFI, 2018, <http://www.uklfi.com/credit-card-donations-to-terr…>
