Another Spanish City Rejects Motion to Boycott Israel

The city of Lérida is the latest Spanish city to reject a motion to boycott Israel.

The City Council of Lérida, Spain last Friday rejected a motion to boycott Israelis and companies doing business with Israel.

The Lawfare Project, a think tank describing itself as the “legal arm of the pro-Israel community,” said it “provided court decisions and legal reasoning, which were discussed during the council’s debate, demonstrating that the boycott motion was unconstitutional and in breach of anti-discrimination laws.”

Angeles Ribes, a member of the City Council, affirmed that “boycotts by public offices are simply illegal.”

Last November, The Lawfare Project took legal action that successfully reversed a decision to boycott Israel by a different Spanish city council in Sant Adrià de Besòs.

Several Spanish cities have rejected resolutions supporting BDS, or have reversed resolutions supporting the anti-Israel campaign.

In January, the Town Hall of Sant Quirze de Vallès, a residential town of some 20,000 inhabitants near Barcelona, was forced to reverse a resolution supporting a BDS campaign and boycotts of Israel after a Barcelona court ruled that the resolution was discriminatory.

Sant Quirze was the 10th municipality in Spain forced to cancel an anti-Israel boycott decision. These annulled resolutions join another seven judicial suspensions of similar anti-Israel discriminatory motions.

The BDS movement promotes financial, academic and cultural boycotts against Israel, ostensibly as a nonviolent struggle against the so-called “Israeli occupation.” Critics say its activities are a modern form of anti-Semitism and that its true objective is to destroy the State of Israel.

By: JNS.org and United with Israel Staff