Omar Barghouti. Photo: Kevin Van Den, Flickr.

JNS.org – The American Jewish Committee condemned the European Parliament on Wednesday for hosting Omar Barghouti, the founder of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Barghouti was invited to address the European Union’s legislature by the radical left-wing parliamentary group Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

In his address, Barghouti accused Israel of being an “apartheid state.”

This comes several weeks after a Norwegian politician nominated the BDS movement for a Nobel Peace Prize, despite its antisemitic calls for Israel’s destruction.

In light of recent political and legal successes in the battle against the BDS movement across Europe, BDS supporters have recently doubled down on efforts to promote the boycott efforts and drum up recognition for the movement.

Daniel Schwammenthal, a representative of American Jewish Committee in Brussels, where the European Parliament sits, remarked that Barghouti’s address was “a grave assault on the dignity of the European Parliament, the Jewish communities in Europe and around the world and — not least — the Israeli-Palestinian peace process itself.”

Schwammenthal leveled harsh criticism at lawmaker Ana Gomes, from the Portuguese Socialist Party, who spearheaded efforts to bring Barghouti to the European Parliament.

According to Schwammenthal, Gomes “has done a great disservice to the Palestinian cause and the peace process by giving a stage to an extremist activist who openly rejects the two-state solution.”