As part of a new global strategy to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the State of Israel organised in Jerusalem an international conference bringing together lawyers, experts, professors and jurists from more than 24 countries to discuss ways of curbing this growing phenomenon.
The aim of this international brainstorming, initiated by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, was to bring together all legal and media resources to fight the delegitimisation of Israel and to propose new legal actions against boycott initiatives.
Many Israeli political figures attended, among them the Minister of Strategic Affairs, Gilad Erdan, the Leader of the Opposition, Isaac Herzog, and the Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit.
Over the three days of the conference, heads of associations and organisations, mayors, professors and international law firms set out their views on the most suitable means of effectively fighting the spread of this movement, which operates at cultural, economic, academic and political levels.
Engaged in a genuine “economic war” against the State of Israel, the BDS movement has been condemned several times by the French Cour de cassation in consistent case law; yet the financial resources available to these organisations remain substantial, allowing them to pursue these actions unlawfully.
This is precisely the focus Debborah Abitbol, founding partner of Abitbol & Associés, chose for her talk.
She denounced the direct and indirect financing of BDS organisations, which de facto breaches the French legislation in force prohibiting the boycott of Israel.
At global level, Debborah Abitbol stressed the urgent need to fill the gaping legal vacuum regarding the characterisation of boycotts and the prohibition of their financing at international level, and to establish international agreements ratified between States, modelled on existing forms of international cooperation, in particular in criminal matters with the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, ratified by France and by Israel and in force in Israel since December 1967.
She therefore proposed harmonising international law: on the one hand, through active cooperation between the authorities of different States to defend the interests of the State of Israel; on the other, through international conventions penalising any boycott action or attempt against Israel.
Excerpt from the talk of Debborah Abitbol, Jerusalem, 7 February 2018:
