Spanish court freezes Ibiza BDS resolution against Israel

Announcement comes as similar boycott motions are spreading throughout Spain and as another motion is scheduled for discussion at the island's next council meeting.

By LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
Updated: SEPTEMBER 24, 2016 23:09
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Spain [File] (photo credit: RÉSEAU VOLTAIRE)
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Spain [File]
(photo credit: RÉSEAU VOLTAIRE)
ACOM, a pro-Israel lobby group working to combat BDS in Spain, was able once again to combat a boycott of Israel resolution passed by a municipality in the renowned Spanish tourist island of Ibiza.
The Jerusalem Post first reported that the City Council of Santa Eulalia, an exclusive residential area and the second-most populated municipality on the island, endorsed the boycott campaign against Israel at its plenary session in July.
According to ACOM last week, the council motion would have condemned an alleged pattern of war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Israel Defense Forces and accused Israel of violating the Geneva Conventions.
The endorsement would have committed the city to support the BDS boycott of Israeli and pro-Israel institutions, companies and organizations, as well as Spanish nationals associated or sympathetic to the Jewish state.
A Palma de Mallorca court issued an injunction on Friday freezing the city’s decision to boycott Israel.
According to ACOM, the court concluded that the boycott decision “even if not executed in practice, sets limits to the rights of individuals and companies that trade with Israel to have relations with the City Council on equal terms.”
The court stated that these limits are “in breach of the rights to non-discrimination and equality before the law.”
The announcement is timely, as similar boycott motions are spreading throughout the country and as another motion is scheduled for discussion at the next Ibiza Island Council meeting.
Angel Mas, president of ACOM, said that, “by now, the Spanish courts have clearly associated the adherence to the BDS campaign by public institutions in Spain with illegal behaviors breaching our constitutional coexistence.”
He said that ACOM’s actions are creating “real deterrence” preventing the voting and approval of many more boycott declarations.
The court decision marks the ninth restraining order against the boycott campaign due to the legal actions of ACOM. In addition, 13 court decisions throughout the country have declared pre-approved boycotts “null and void” for breaching basic constitutional rights, with several other cases pending.
Ignacio Wenley Palacios, a lawyer who heads ACOM’s anti-boycott legal actions, said: “The boycott campaign has reached its final stage in Spain, crossing every constitutional redline: endorsement by public bodies, setting discrimination as a principle while violating core civil rights.”
However, he added, “It is in Spain where court writs and judgments have laid the first founding stones of the legal reasoning that may bring the demise of the boycott campaign in Europe.”