U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated on Thursday that the United States would withdraw funding from groups that support the anti-Israel BDS movement.
“We will recognize the global BDS campaign as anti-Semitic,” he said. “The time is right. … We want to join all the other nations that recognize BDS for the cancer that it is,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the policy “simply wonderful.”
In a statement released by the U.S. State Department, Pompeo said he has instructed the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, led by Elan Carr, “ to identify organizations that engage in, or otherwise support, the Global BDS Campaign” in which Carr’s office “will consider whether an organization is engaged in actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize, or otherwise limit, commercial relations specifically with Israel or persons doing business in Israel or in any territory controlled by Israel.”
He continued, “To ensure that department funds are not spent in a manner that is inconsistent with our government’s commitment to combat anti-Semitism, the State Department will review the use of its funds to confirm that they are not supporting the Global BDS Campaign. Furthermore, the State Department will conduct a review of options consistent with applicable law to ensure that its foreign assistance funding is not provided to foreign organizations engaged in anti-Semitic BDS activities.”
In a separate but related move on Thursday, the State Department issued a new policy that requires products made in Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be labeled as “Israel,” “Product of Israel” or “Made in Israel” when exporting to the United States.
