U.S. declares Palestinian-led boycott movement ‘anti-Semitic’

The U.S. will henceforth regard the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as “anti-Semitic,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday.

Pompeo said that the U.S. would stop funding groups with links to the Palestinian-led movement, which promotes boycotts of Israeli produce.

“We will regard the global BDS campaign as anti-Semitic,” Pompeo said after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“We will immediately take steps to identify organisations that engage in hateful BDS contact and withdraw U.S. government support for such groups,” he added.

“The time is ripe,” he said, calling the movement a “cancer.’’

“This sounds simply wonderful,” Netanyahu replied.

Netanyahu thanked Pompeo and out-going U.S. President Donald Trump for their unprecedented support over the past four years, including recognising the “legal status of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.”

Netanyahu was referring to Pompeo’s announcement one year ago that Washington no longer regards Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank as illegal under international law as most of the international community does.

Pompeo was expected to pay the first visit of its kind by a U.S. secretary of state to a West Bank settlement later on Thursday, sparking Palestinian outrage and protests.