Middle East Monitor / December 5, 2020
The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement on Friday slammed Bahrain’s recognition of settlement goods as “war crimes”, Quds Press reported.
Bahrain’s Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed Al-Zayani announced that his country would not boycott the products of Israeli settlements built on Palestinian lands, and would deal with them in a similar manner to which it deals with products made in Israel.
BDS Coordinator Mahmoud Nawajaa expressed in response: “This is a flagrant deviation from the Arab and Islamic stance and makes Bahrain, according to international law, involved in Israeli crimes.”
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Nawajaa also stated: “Israel’s building of settlements on Palestinian lands occupied in 1967 is a war crime,” pointing out that Bahrain’s recognition of these settlements “makes it a participant in the perpetration of war crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Nawajaa believes that this measure: “Reveals the extent to which Bahrain is carrying out the agenda of the current US administration and that of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
He concluded: “We are confident that the Bahraini people will boycott all the Israeli products, not only those of the settlements.”
On 15 September, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed normalisation deals with Israel. On 23 October, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry also announced the normalisation of ties with Israel.
In 2016, the United Nations Security Council considered Israeli settlements built on Palestinian lands occupied in 1967 as “illegal”.
Most European countries do not deal with settlement products in the same way as Israeli products. They do not label them as being produced in Israel.
