Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry on Wednesday said on Wednesday that Israel’s peace agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are likely to interfere with the BDS movement’s ability to implement initiatives.
In a memorandum dispatched to diplomatic and defense officials, the ministry, which is led by Orit Farkash-Hacohen, said that Arab countries’ willingness to normalize relations with Israel also threatens the ideological underpinning of the BDS movement.
Opponents of normalization, chief among them the Palestinian Authority, and possibly Hamas and Iran, can be expected to tighten cooperation, warned the memo. They will likely focus their efforts on international institutions, specifically the International Criminal Court at The Hague and the U.N. Human Rights Council, where their views are broadly supported, said the ministry.
“The [normalization] treaties are a clear message to all our enemies against hate and boycotts,” said Farkash-Hacohen. “They prove to these organizations, which have incessantly preached against normalization and invested resources in entrenching their screed across the Arab world, that the path to stability in the Middle East only goes through cooperation and dialogue.”
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Israel Hayom.