Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

A Palestinian Authority (PA) official lashed out at the international community on Tuesday for complicity in Israel’s effort to “quash” the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In an op-ed in Newsweek, PA chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat wrote that Israel’s “campaign against Palestinian civil society and partners has been somehow accepted and even encouraged by some members of the international community. We were astonished to see an official European Union presence at two anti-BDS conferences, with the EU representative to Tel Aviv not only praising Israel for its ‘human rights record,’ but also by publicly stating that ‘settlement products are welcome in European markets.’”

Erekat went on to complain that “several EU representatives, including Federica Mogherini, have publicly committed that no concrete actions, other than statements, will be taken against Israeli violations of international law, just as the head of the EU Parliament, Martin Schultz, told his Israeli counterpart, a settler himself, that he is against the labeling of Israeli settlement products.”

According to Erekat, the “maximum the international community is willing to offer … is condemnation rather than concrete actions to end the oldest foreign military occupation in modern history.”

Israel’s recent announcement that it would seek to deport and deny entry to foreign BDS activists “exposes the Israeli government’s will to end any peaceful resistance against its systematic violations of Palestinian human rights,” Erekat claimed.

The veteran Palestinian official concluded with a threat: “Palestinians will not sit idle while Israeli bulldozers continue to demolish Palestinian homes and label Palestinian land for settlement construction.”

As was reported in The Algemeiner, earlier this month, Czech Republic EU Parliament member Petr Mach announced the establishment of an official caucus group of European politicians that will support building Jewish homes in the West Bank, and promote free trade with imports made and labeled from these areas in Israel.