Spanish court overturns regional Israel boycott

Ignacio Wenley Palacios, the ACOM lawyer leading the anti-boycott effort in Spain, said the BDS movement is “thinly disguised under a veil of a deceiving human rights narrative.”

By LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
Protesters call for boycott of Israel [file] (photo credit: REUTERS)
Protesters call for boycott of Israel [file]
(photo credit: REUTERS)
ACOM, an Israel lobby group working to combat BDS in Spain, successfully overturned a boycott decision passed by the city council of Vélez-Málaga in the Costa del Sol region this week.
The Málaga court issued a preliminary restraining order on the boycott decision.
Vélez-Málaga is a city of some 77,800 people in the Málaga province along the southern Mediterranean coast. The province is home to one the largest Jewish communities in Spain, with congregations in Málaga, Marbella and Torremolinos.
Following the court’s decision on the claim submitted by ACOM, the city council announced its intention to annul the boycott against Israel and companies doing business with the country.
ACOM’s president Angel Mas, who has filed court proceedings against the most prominent boycotts in Spain, said that “even as discriminatory motions are halted every month, the aggressive boycott campaign continues, with new anti-Semitic declarations being approved almost every week.”
“In view of the success of our legal actions against them, the BDS campaign has started concealing to the public opinion these city council approvals in order to avoid prompt court initiatives,” he explained.
Since last week, seven new cities with a combined population of some 406,000 people have joined the BDS movement, according to Mas.
“We call on every friend of Israel to join us in this effort to avoid impunity and create effective deterrence,” he said.
To date, Spanish courts have declared six city council boycott decisions null and void, and seven more have been effectively halted by preliminary restraining orders, all as a result of court proceedings brought by ACOM.
Ignacio Wenley Palacios, the ACOM lawyer leading the anti-boycott effort in Spain, said the BDS movement is “thinly disguised under a veil of a deceiving human rights narrative.”
“The boycott campaign is nothing but plain discrimination on basis of national origin, affinities, and personal beliefs,” he said. “This anti-Semitic initiative is an attack to our constitutional rights and freedoms.”
Earlier this month, Mas told The Jerusalem Post that the BDS movement was targeting coastal municipalities as part of its “summer campaign.”
Mas explained that an endorsement of BDS by the city council essentially commits the city to support the boycott against Israeli and pro-Israel institutions, companies and organizations, as well as Spanish nationals associated or sympathetic to the Jewish state.
The council agreement declares the area a “space free of Israeli apartheid” and calls on the municipal government to execute the boycott agreement, he said.


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