Germany’s ‘antisemitism czar’ wants banks to boot BDS groups
Königshaus: Now that bank executives are aware of antisemitic activities of boycott movement, they must act against it
The newly appointed federal government commissioner for combating antisemitism in Germany, Felix Klein, has condemned the Bank for Social Economy for providing bank accounts to antisemitic BDS groups. He has also expressed support for the city of Frankfurt’s ban on doing business with financial institutions that support, directly or indirectly, the campaign to boycott the Jewish state.
“I condemn this bank relationship,” Klein said in response to a Jerusalem Post press query Thursday about the Cologne-based Bank for Social Economy providing accounts to at least four organizations that enable – or explicitly advocate – the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign against Israel.
Klein adds the voice of Germany’s federal government to leading Jewish human rights groups in the US, Israel and Germany – including Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan – who have called on the bank’s executive board to pull the plug on its BDS accounts.
“My assessment is the BDS movement incites antisemitism in its methods and goals,” Klein said. “The call of BDS to boycott Israeli businesses as well as the ‘Don’t buy!’ stickers on products from the Jewish state are to be condemned without qualifications.”
“In past years, Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin decided to deny financial support and municipal rooms, in the future, to the BDS campaign that is hostile to Israel,” he said. “The city of Frankfurt works since the beginning of the year only with banks that do not maintain business relations with BDS. In my judgment, both [antiBDS measures] are an important signal that antisemitism, as well as the international isolation and defamation of Israel as alleged ‘apartheid state,’ will not be tolerated.”
The Bank for Social Economy vigorously supports its bank account for the hardcore BDS group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East in Germany, as well as other BDS activities enabled by the bank. The BDS groups use their accounts with the bank in their fundraising efforts in Europe.
Klaus Faber, the chairman of the Coordinating Council of German Non-governmental Organizations against Antisemitism, told The Jerusalem Post that the bank should shut down its BDS accounts.
“BDS GROUPS are antisemitic and hostile to Israel... that target the isolation and destruction of Israel,” he said. “Antisemitic activities are, in the view of the Coordinating Council, not compatible with Germany’s history and constitution.”
The prominent German LGBT organization Magnus Hirschfeld shut its account with the Bank for Social Economy to protest the bank’s anti-Israel bank accounts. On May 14, the Magnus Hirschfeld is slated to honor the 150th birthday of the gay German-Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin.
“People, NGOs [and] companies should, in this case, follow the example of the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation and cancel their accounts,” Faber said.
The Bank for Social Economy’s executive board member Oliver Luckner doubled-down on Twitter in the bank’s defense of its BDS accounts. He tweeted the bank’s website statement defending the bank’s alleged antisemitic accounts.
The bank’s March statement said it rejects BDS and “any form of antisemitism, but we nevertheless accept that there are widely diverging views on the Middle East conflict and the relationship between the Palestinians and the State of Israel. Underpinning this approach is the principle of freedom of expression, which in the light of German history we consider especially important.”
Numerous Post telephone and email queries to Harald Schmitz, the bank’s chairperson, were not returned in response to the call of Germany’s antisemitism czar for the bank to stop its alleged antisemitic activity. A third bank executive, Thomas Kahleis, declined to answer multiple Post queries.
Hellmut Königshaus, the chairman of the German-Israel friendship society (DIG), told the Post, “DIG condemns the activities of the BDS movement and considers BDS to be motivated by antisemitism.”
He said a lot of what is called “criticism of Israel” is motivated by antisemitism. “Of course, the bank should end every relation with this movement and its representatives,” he added.
Königshaus said now that the bank’s executives are aware of the antisemitic activities of BDS they must act against it.
Klein was appointed Germany’s first commissioner to combat the rising level of contemporary antisemitism in Germany and to help protect Jewish life in the federal republic. Since 2016, the German banks Deutsche Bank, Postbank, Commerzbank and DAB have terminated accounts of BDS groups due to reasons that include connections to Palestinian terrorism and antisemitism. Banks in Austria, Ireland, the United States and France have also shut down BDS accounts over the last two years. The online payment service PayPal shut down four BDS French accounts in the first four months of 2018.