A German bank that caters to companies involved in social issues is closing the account of an anti-Israel group with alleged terror ties, Benjamin Weinthal reported Saturday for The Jerusalem Post.
The Bank für Sozialwirtschaft (Bank for Social Economy) informed Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East that it will shut down its account by the end of the year. The group includes “a who’s who of anti-Zionist German Jews, a number of whom have been accused of modern antisemitism,” Weinthal reported.
The bank opened its investigation into Jewish Voice in September, following an inquiry from the Post that the group has alleged links to Hamas, spreads anti-Semitism, and engages in activities related to the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel.
The Jewish Voice member who announced online that the group’s account is being terminated also spoke at the 13th Palestinians in Europe Conference in April 2015, which was attended by Hamas supporters, according to the Berlin-based Der Tagesspiegel. The conference was sponsored by the Palestinian Return Center, which then Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called an “unlawful association” in 2010 over its connections to Hamas. Bild, the best-selling German newspaper, referred to the event as “the Hamas conference in Berlin.”
Jewish Voice’s announcement was posted on Der Semit, an anti-Zionist website that promotes the BDS campaign. The editor-in-chief of Der Semit’s now-defunct print magazine was Oscar LeWinter, a confidence man who had previously been convicted on fraud and drug dealing charges.
Many European banks instituted extensive internal checks and other monitoring mechanisms to clamp down on illegal activities this year. Bank units governing compliance with anti-financial crimes and anti-money laundering regulations have been “on alert” due to growing financing activities related to Iran and terrorist groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State, Weinthal reported.
In June, the Post first reported that Commerzbank, Germany’s second-largest bank, closed the Der Semit account held by the Jewish Voice member who spoke at the pro-Hamas event. In February, DAB Bank in Munich pulled shut the account of the Berlin-based BDS Campaign NGO. …
In 2016, financial organizations and banks across Europe shed BDS accounts. Paypal, Crédit Mutuel and BNP Paribas shut accounts in France and Germany. The Austrian banks Erste Group and BAWAG closed BDS and Palestinian terrorism accounts in Vienna.
Jewish Voice in Germany is part of a broader coalition of anti-Israel groups called European Jews for a Just Peace. Registered in 2007, the group has called for an economic boycott of Germany’s Jewish National Fund and led BDS efforts against the Israeli skin-care company Ahava.
At a congressional hearing in April, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, outlined how members of a network that used to fund Hamas have become the driving force behind the BDS campaign against Israel in the United States.
BDS seeks to stigmatize and isolate Israel socially, economically, and politically until it accedes to a number of unilateral Palestinian demands. Critics of the campaign have accused it of being discriminatory in tone and intention, and pointed out that many of its leaders have publicly affirmed that they seek Israel’s destruction. BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, an opponent of the two-state solution, said in 2014 that Palestinians have a right to “resistance by any means, including armed resistance,” while leading activist As’ad Abu Khalil acknowledged in 2012 that “the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel.”
[Photo: Bank für Sozialwirtschaft ]