Israel Publishes BDS Blacklist:
20 Groups Will Be Denied Entry

Israel published on Sunday the full list of organizations whose activists will be barred from entering the country. The so-called BDS blacklist was released by the Strategic Affairs Ministry.

Members of the 20 organizations on the list will not be allowed to enter the country due to their support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. The list primarily includes European and American organizations as well as groups from Latin America, a group from South Africa and an international umbrella organization. 

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The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization honored with the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize for assisting and rescuing victims of the Nazis, is among the list of groups whose activists Israel has announced it will bar from entering the Jewish State. On Saturday it was revealed that the left-wing organization Jewish Voice for Peace was on the list.

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“We have shifted from defense to offense,” Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said. “The boycott organizations need to know that the State of Israel will act against them and not allow [them] to enter its territory to harm its citizens.”

“No country would have allowed critics coming to harm the country to entry it,” added Erdan.

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Interior Minister Arye Dery, whose ministry is responsible for implementing the list, 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.”

New Israel Fund CEO Daniel Sokatch said in response that “banning political opposition is the policy of autocracies, not democracies,” adding that “our position is principled: We do not support the BDS movement. We oppose the government’s travel ban and all its actions to punish those with whom it disagrees.”

On instructions from Dery and Erdan, several individuals have already been denied entry into Israel over their support for BDS. Isabel Phiri, a citizen of Malawi living in Switzerland who is a senior official of the World Council of Churches, was put on a flight back after she arrived at Ben-Gurion Internationl Airport in December 2016. The Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority said that this was “actually the first time that the State of Israel was clearly refusing entry to a tourist based on anti-Israel activity and promoting economic, cultural and academic boycotts against it.”

For months the Strategic Affairs Ministry had refused to divulge which organizations are on the list. However, a joint team from the Strategic Affairs and Interior ministries had previously determined the parameters that serve as a basis for barring activists from coming into the country.

Those who hold senior or important positions in blacklisted organizations will be denied entry, as well as key activists, even if they hold no official position. Mayors and establishment figures who actively and continually promote boycotts will also be prevented from entering, as will activists who arrive to Israel on behalf of or as part of a delegation initiated by one of blacklisted groups.

The full list

European organizations:
■ The France Association Palestine Solidarity
■ BDS France
■ BDS Italy
■ The European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine
■ Friends of Al-Aqsa
■ Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
■ The Palestine Committee of Norway
■ Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden
■ Palestine Solidarity Campaign
■ War on Want
■ BDS Kampagne

American organizations:
■ American Friends Service Committee
■ American Muslims for Palestine
■ Code Pink
■ Jewish Voice for Peace
■ National Students for Justice in Palestine
■ US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Other groups:
■ BDS Chile
■ BDS South Africa
■ BDS National Committee