An Austrian banking giant has terminated the account of an anti-Israel group involved in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, Benjamin Weinthal of The Jerusalem Post reported on Saturday. Erste Group Bank was first revealed to be hosting an account held by BDS Austria in March.

In a statement on its website, BDS Austria claimed that its bank account was closed “as a result of political pressure… We therefore are obliged to cancel the account and until further notice will not have any bank account.” In an English version of its statement, BDS Austria blamed Weinthal, describing him as “an Israeli journalist and employee of the neo-conservative US think-tank ‘Foundation for Defense of Democracies.'”

The Erste Group’s closure of BDS Austria is the second such action taken in recent months. The Post reported in February that a German bank, a subsidiary of the French giant BNP Paribas, came under legal pressure to close the account of Germany’s BDS campaign since it put the bank in violation of French law. The German BDS campaign confirmed that its account had been closed a few weeks later.

The BDS campaign attempts to delegitimize Israel in an effort to advance Palestinian interests, and many of its leaders, including BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, have publicly affirmed that they seek Israel’s destruction. France’s high court last year ruled that BDS was an illegal form of hate speech.

Last month, Weinthal reported that another Austrian Bank, BAWAG, is hosting an account for the Austrian-Arab Cultural Center (OKAZ), a pro-BDS organization that had recently featured terrorist Leila Khaled as a speaker. Khaled is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, and was involved in two hijackings in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

[Photo: ErsteGoupBankAG / YouTube ]