“We hope that words will be followed
by deeds and that… there will soon be a parliamentary resolution,”
wrote the organization Jewish-Austrian Students, which hosted the
politicians at its event in Vienna earlier this month.
In response to a question at the event
from college student Noah Scheer, who asked if the Austrian
parliament will replicate the May decision of the German Bundestag to
classify BDS as antisemitic, the MPs pledged to do so.
Sibylle Hamann from the Green Party
compared BDS to the Nazi-era “Don’t buy from Jews” campaign.
She said the Nazi slogan “resonates” with the BDS campaign.
The other Austrian MPs present were
Pamela Rendi-Wagner (Social Democrats), Wolfgang Sobotka (People’s
Party), Helmut Brandstätter (NEOS), and Peter Pilz (JETZT).
In 2018, Vienna’s city council passed
an anti-BDS resolution, which unanimously proscribed the organization
as antisemitic and banned support for “events that advertise for
BDS.”
However, the national parliament has
yet to pass a similar resolution.
The lawmakers did not specify a
specific target date, although elections for a new parliament are on
Sunday.
The US House of Representatives
overwhelming condemned BDS in July.
In 2016, the Jerusalem Post reported
that one of Austria’s largest companies – the Erste Group –
closed a bank account held by BDS Austria.
In the same year, the Post exclusively
reported that the Austrian financial giant Bawag closed the bank
account of Vienna’s Austrian-Arab cultural center (OKAZ), which
hosted in Vienna in April Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, who
supports BDS.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
