After BDS [ boycott Israel ] groups mounted a campaign against Israel’s sponsorship of the Pop Cultural festival in August 2017, musicians from Egypt, Syria and Tunisia withdrew from the event.

The Bank for Social Economy – a German financial institution that holds the most number of BDS accounts in the country – is permitting a boycott Israel group to raise funds to boot Israel from sponsoring an August pop culture festival as well as urge the federal government to expel Israel’s ambassador from Berlin because of the Gaza conflict.

The extremist German-based BDS group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East wrote on its website on May 9 expressing “solidarity with the Palestinian call to renew a boycott of the Pop Culture Festival until the support of the Israeli Embassy is dropped.” On Friday, Jewish Voice called on Germany’s government to expel Israel’s Ambassador to Berlin Jeremy Issacharoff and stop weapons deliveries to the Jewish state.

BDS is an abbreviation for the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign targeting Israel.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday, “The announcement by this quote-unquote ‘Jewish group’ of a boycott of an Israeli supported cultural event – not political event – as well as their call for Germany to expel Israel’s ambassador shreds any supposed agreement that the Bank for Social Economy would not be involved in boycott activity. Such an agreement was not worth the email it was written on.”

Cooper added, “Jewish Voice exists only to delegitimize and demonize Israel, and the bank knows it. Despite this new development, the bank allows its services to be used by these [BDS] groups. The bank is knowingly facilitating boycotts of Israel. As a result, if that remains the bank’s policy, the Simon Wiesenthal Center urges all Jewish institutions and individual Jewish depositors to leave the bank and take their business elsewhere.”

Read More: Jerusalem Post