French Justice Minister Shuns Paris Awards Ceremony for Controversial Far-Left Israeli, Palestinian NGOs
by Algemeiner Staff
French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet did not attend a ceremony in Paris on Monday where her country’s Human Rights Award was given to the far-left Israeli NGO B’Tselem, as well as the Palestinian NGO Al-Haq — which has been accused of having links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group.
CRIF — the French Jewish community’s umbrella organization — told The Algemeiner that it had communicated with Belloubet’s staff and they confirmed she had “decided not to assist with the remittance of the prize.”
Belloubet’s staff, according to CRIF, said the justice minister “would not participate [in the ceremony] and that she has not changed her opinion on BDS.”
“We have met with Nicole Belloubet recently,” CRIF Executive Director Robert Ejnes said. “She reaffirmed her opposition to BDS.”
At Monday’s ceremony, which was held at the Justice Ministry building in the French capital, B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad criticized Israel, asserting, “The occupation, in and of itself, is organized, prolonged, state violence, which brings about dispossession, killings, and oppression. All branches of the state are part of it: ministers and judges, officers and planners, parliamentarians and bureaucrats. Those who lead the opposition to this unjust reality are human rights organizations — precisely because we categorically reject violence and harm to civilians.”