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Irish EU lawmaker slammed for ‘explaining’ anti-Semitism to Jews while promoting BDS

The webinar was organized by a group associated with the anti-Israel BDS movement.

By Benjamin Kerstein, The Algemeiner

A Irish member of the European Parliament was criticized on Wednesday after she slammed a European Jewish students organization for rebuking her over her participation in a webinar associated with the BDS movement that will include one participant from an organization linked to Palestinian terrorism and another who compared Israel to the Nazi regime.

Clare Daly — a far-left MEP representing the Dublin constituency — made her comments in response to a tweet by the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) expressing concern about Daly’s participation in a planned webinar titled “Stop Settlements — On the Road to Justice in Palestine.”

In a press release, EUJS noted that the webinar was organized by the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine, associated with the anti-Israel BDS movement, which EUJS described as “antisemitic.”

“It is greatly alarming that MEP Daly should choose to align herself and share a platform with others who hold such antisemitic views and links to terrorist organizations,” EUJS said.

“As such, we call upon MEP Daly to withdraw her participation from this event,” it added. “Furthermore, we call upon the European Union to condemn the association being made in its name that a Member of Parliament is sharing a platform with antisemitic and terrorist-linked organizations.”

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The terrorism link referred to is the participation of Dr. Anna Kdair of the organization Al-Haq. UK Lawyers for Israel stated in 2018 that Al-Haq’s online facilities for credit card donations had been terminated because they were “providing financial transaction services to organizations with links to a terrorist organization,” in this case the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Responding to EUJS, Daly tweeted, “Speaking out against illegal Israeli settlements & advocating that we ban settlement goods, the produce of theft, is not ‘anti-semitic’ it’s an obligation if you believe in international law & human rights!”

The American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute quickly replied, saying, “Speechless. @ClareDalyMEP ‘explains’ Antisemitism to a Jewish student organisation while promoting antisemitic BDS and sharing a platform with a group linked to the PFLP – EU-designated terrorists known for attacks on synagogues from Paris to Jerusalem.”

The webinar in question is also set to include Michael Lynk, a Canadian law professor, who once asserted that Israel’s settlement policies were akin to “the transfer by the Nazis of German-speaking peoples into newly conquered lands during the Second World War.”

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Comparing Israel to the Nazis is considered antisemitism under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition adopted by many nations and organizations around the world.