Berlin Mayor Michael Müller. Photo: Sebaso via Wikimedia Commons.

A prominent US-based Jewish human rights group has praised the mayor of Germany’s capital city for the condemnation he issued on Wednesday of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Berlin Mayor Michael Müller “showed true leadership in denouncing BDS for what it is: an anti-Semitic, anti-peace campaign,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper — the associate dean and director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center — said. “He has emphatically added his important voice to the global efforts to defeat extremists dedicated to the demise of the Jewish state.”

Cooper’s comment followed a pronouncement made by Müller in which he declared, “BDS stands with antisemitic signs in front of Berlin businesses. Those are intolerable methods from the Nazi period. We will do everything possible to withdraw money and rooms for BDS’s anti-Israel agitation.”

According to a Jerusalem Post report, Müller had been facing pressure in recent months over his lack of a stated position on BDS.

Last month, Frankfurt became the first German city to ban municipal funding of BDS activities. A similar legislative effort is underway in Munich.