Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

U.S. President Barak Obama indicated that he will sign the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. The U.S. Senate passed the act on February 11th, 2015.

Mondoweiss reported that though the policy is not centered on U.S. trade with Israel, it includes a number of anti-BDS provisions. For example, the bill establishes legal protections for American companies operating in Israel and will require the U.S. administration to report to Congress on global BDS activities 180 days after it becomes law.

In addition to undermining BDS initiatives, the bill introduces new language on Israel to the arena of U.S. policy. In the legislation, Israel is defined as all “Israeli controlled territories," including illegal settlements.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1277-obama-to-sign-anti-bds-legislation

Bernie Sanders and the question of Palestine

At a March 1988 news conference endorsing Jesse Jackson’s candidacy for president, Bernie Sanders blasted Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinian protesters as “an absolute disgrace.”

“The sight of Israeli soldiers breaking the arms and legs of Arabs is reprehensible. The idea of Israel closing down towns and sealing them off is unacceptable,” the then mayor of Burlington, Vermont, said to a gaggle of reporters.

Sanders was referring to the television images that shocked the world in those early months of the first intifada, of Israeli soldiers methodically breaking the limbs of Palestinian youths on the orders of then defense minister Yitzhak Rabin.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/bernie-sanders-and-question-palestine/15581

Netanyahu meets with EU Commission VP over Israeli-European relations

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini to discuss Israeli-European relations and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Friday.

Relations between the European Union and Israel had been tense in recent months after the EU Commission adopted measures to label products from Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law, in November.

But Mogherini stressed on Friday the EU’s opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and its “firm rejection of BDS attempts to isolate Israel,” a statement released by the EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy department quoted her as saying.

Mogherini also “expressed solidarity with the people of Israel who have suffered from terrorist violence,” the statement said, and reaffirmed the EU’s “commitment” to Israel’s security.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=770270