Israel imposes travel ban on 20 foreign NGOs over boycott movement

ISRAEL - The prominent British campaign group War on Want has been listed as one of 20 foreign NGOs whose representatives are banned from visiting Israel over their support of the proPalestinian boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) movement.

The publication of the list, which also includes a wellknown Jewish anti-occupation group and a Nobel peace prize-winning US Quaker group, had been threatened for months by Israel. The organizations were singled out by Israel’s rightwing strategic affairs and public security minister, Gilad Erdan, for advocating boycotts of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. Erdan said on Sunday that the groups “operate consistently and continuously” against Israel using a “campaign of incitement and lies”. Human rights groups condemned the move as an assault on free speech. A number of individuals have been refused entry into Israel in recent months, including a prominent African theologian and official of the World Council of Churches. While most of the organisations listed by Erdan are local branches of the BDS movement around the world, others include Jewish Voice for Peace, which has 13,000 members, the US group Code Pink and the American Friends Service Committee, which won the peace prize in 1947. As well as War on Want, the list names a second British group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which Jeremy Corbyn is a patron. Erdan said Israel had “shifted from defence to offence” with the publication of the list. “The boycott organisations need to know that the state of Israel will act against them and not allow [them] to enter its territory to harm its citizens,” he said. “No country would have allowed critics coming to harm the country to enter it.” The interior minister, Arye Dery, whose ministry is responsible for barring those listed, said: “These people are trying to exploit the law and our hospitality to act against Israel and to defame the country. I will act against this by every means.” The travel ban is the latest in a series of populist moves by the Israeli government, the most rightwing coalition in the country’s history. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he intends to remove 40,000 African migrants from Israel and expressed support for making it easier to hang people convicted of terrorism. (The guardian.com)