GERMAN-ISRAELI SOLIDARITY FORGED FROM HORRORS OF WAR
Merkel Calls for Europe to Stand Up Against Far-Right Parties.
BDS supporters advocate for an Israeli boycott to protest of the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Germany has dealt a major blow to a movement which calls for a global Israeli economic boycott, as its parliament voted to condemn the effort as anti-Semitic.
The Bundestag's decision came amid heightened attention on Israel as it hosts the 2019 Eurovision song contest this weekend.
The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has been advocating for non-violent pressure on Israel since 2005, as they seek to end the occupation of Palestinian land, grant Arab citizens equal rights and recognize the right of return of Palestinian refugees — but Israel has labelled the movement anti-Semitic.
Palestinians have sought statehood in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital, since Israel's capture of the territories in 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
In the decades since power-brokers from around the world have pushed Israel and Palestine to work toward a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders, but a resolution has not prevailed.
The last round of peace talks between Israel and Palestine have been frozen since 2014, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who was recently returned to power for a record fifth term — has been aided by the Trump administration's change in US policy which has recognized some of the disputed territories as Israel's own.
Ahead of Tel Aviv's Eurovision Song Contest, human rights activists in support of Palestinian rights earlier had protested outside of the performance venue.
One protester argued that they were there to "say no to sparkles and glitters" while the Arab Palestinian minority were "under occupation".
The motion was submitted in the Bundestag by Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, their Social Democrat coalition partners as well as the Greens and Free Democrats.
Securing Israel's survival has been a priority for Germany since the defeat of the Third Reich at the close of the Second World War, after which an estimated six million Jews were murdered at the hands of German authorities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the decision in a statement on Twitter.
"I hope that this decision will bring about concrete steps and I call upon other countries to adopt similar legislation," he said in a statement on Twitter.
The BDS condemned the motion as anti-Palestinian.
"The German establishment is entrenching its complicity in Israel's crimes of military occupation, ethnic cleansing, siege and apartheid, while desperately trying to shield it from accountability to international law," it said on Twitter.
