Tuesday, 02 February 2021_Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on new US President Joe Biden to defend free speech, including peaceful calls for a boycott of Israel, and publicly renounce his predecessor Donald Trump’s legacy of branding human rights groups and activists critical of Israel and its settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian lands as “anti-Semitic.”
Eric Goldstein, acting Middle East and North Africa executive director at the HRW, stated on Monday that the Democratic leader should oppose laws that penalize companies seeking to cut ties with West Bank settlements — which are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention — in order to avoid complicity in inevitable human rights violations of the structures.
Goldstein then expressed doubts that Biden would end Washington’s attempts to tar the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in ways that threaten free speech.
The BDS movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”
Thousands of volunteers worldwide have since then joined the campaign, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural and academic ties to Tel Aviv, to help promote the Palestinian cause.
Goldstein went on to say that former hawkish US secretary of state Mike Pompeo did not stop at accusing the pro-Palestinian BDS movement of being “anti-Semitic,” but also lumped in groups that use international law as a basis to urge businesses to shun Israeli settlements.
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