Spanish City Council Reverses Vote to Support Boycotts of Israel

Another victory for Israel supporters! After encountering legal challenges, a city council on the Spanish island of Ibiza has reversed its vote to support the BDS movement.

In a rare move, the council of the town of Santa Eulalia on the Spanish island of Ibiza reversed its decision to support boycotts on Israel and approved last Friday a motion to cancel its vote from August to endorse the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.

The lobby group ACOM, which works to combat BDS in Spain took legal action against the vote and demonstrated the illegality of the agreement, forcing Mayor Vicente Marí Torres and his Partido Popular group to change to resolution.

The resolution initially stated that the city, the most populated municipality on the island, would have supported “the BDS campaign, the boycott against Israeli and pro-Israel institutions, companies and organizations, including Spanish nationals associated or sympathetic to the Jewish state.” This also would have meant that the area of Santa Eulalia on the Island – popular with many tourists, including Israelis – would have been designated a “space free of Israeli Apartheid.”

“We really appreciate the support of Ciudadanos party trying to stop this ignominy. Once again, Santa Eulalia is the tolerant and cosmopolitan open-minded town, the city that does not discriminate against anyone because of its national, ethnic or religious origin, including the Jews,” ACOM said in a statement.

“The BDS, an obviously anti-Semitic movement, not only finds a firm response in our judicial system and our constitutional framework (with courts that legally deal blow after blow to its strategy of thuggery and violence). But also the Spanish civil society and a growing sensitivity in the representatives of the citizens are putting a stop to these Judeophobic outbursts,” the pro-Israel advocacy group added.

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: Max Gelber, United with Israel