Netanyahu Likens Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) to Nazi Germany

Netanyahu Likens Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) to Nazi Germany

By Annie Robbins
Mondoweiss 15 June 2015

I suppose it was bound to happen eventually; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said BDS, the Palestinian led nonviolent global movement for justice in Palestine, resembled Nazi Germany. He said it during a meeting with Poland’s Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna today, in speaking of the “defamation” of the Jewish people in Poland when Nazis controlled the country.

“The attacks on the Jews were always preceded by the slander of the Jews. What was done to the Jewish people then is being done to the Jewish state now,” Netanyahu said.

“In those days we could do nothing. Today we can speak our mind, hold our ground. We’re going to do both.”

Last week Netanyahu told a Las Vegas conference on BDS that American supporters were the “front line” in a fight against BDS; and in a speech last year at an Israel lobby group, Netanyahu mentioned BDS 18 times in denouncing it. Last week, Netanyahu’s former minister of finance Yair Lapid said that the same people responsible for the 9/11 attacks were behind the BDS movement.