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The Israeli government said that it was the subject of a “volcano of hatred” after the capital of Iceland decided to boycott Israeli products due to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the ongoing atrocities committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, local media reported early Thursday.
In response Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon told the Jerusalem Post that “a volcano of hate exploded in the building of the Reykjavik municipality.”
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Bravo to Iceland for boycotting Israel! The Israelis can't believe that their actions may actually have consequences. #BDS #FreePalestine
— Ebn e Khalid (@EbneK)
September 17, 201
“Without any reason or justification, except for pure hatred, calls were heard to boycott the state of Israel. We hope that someone in Iceland will wake up and put an end to this blindness and one-sidedness that is demonstrated toward Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.”
The city council in Iceland’s capital Reykjavík voted Tuesday by a 9-5 majority to bar Israeli products from official purchases as long as Israel’s occupation of Palestinian regions continues.RELATED: Boycott Israel: teleSUR Looks at BDS
“The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement all over the world is becoming stronger because we know how boycotting goods has influenced other states like South Africa,” Björk Vilhelmsdóttir, a member of the left-leaning Social Democratic Alliance party in Iceland who sponsored the motion told The Electronic Intifada.
While Israel, as expected, hinted that the move was antisemitism and hatred, Palestinian activists hailed the move as pure support and extended a “salute” to the Icelandic city and its officials.
According to The Electronic Intifada, Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights campaigner and co-founder of the BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement, sent a “warm salute to all Palestine solidarity and BDS movement partners in Iceland who contributed to writing this piece of the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.”
He also predicated that “Israel, with its powerful tools in Washington and Brussels, will certainly pull out its entire bullying arsenal to try to reverse this precedent-setting, historic victory for the boycott movement against its regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.”
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