German government refuses to label BDS as anti-Semitic – Green Party MP Volker Beck: The federal government has cowered in the face of Jew hatred. | Jerusalem Post

German government refuses to label BDS as anti-Semitic – Green Party MP Volker Beck: The federal government has cowered in the face of Jew hatred. | Jerusalem Post

Germany has rejected a definition of anti-Semitism that labels the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) as anti-Semitic.

Responding to a legislative questionnaire released Thursday by leading Green Party MP Volker Beck, the Merkel administration wrote that “there does not exist a general academic definition” of anti-Semitism.

Beck, who heads the German- Israel parliamentary group in the Bundestag, sharply criticized the Merkel administration: “Here the federal government has cowered,” he said. “There is no doubt of the anti-Semitic motivation within the spectrum of the BDS campaign. BDS aims essentially against Jewish Israelis and is therefore anti-Semitic. Whoever aggressively boycotts Israeli goods and people, should also be viewed as anti-Semitic by the federal government.”….