Academy Awards. Photo: wiki commons.

JNS.org – Palestinian activists from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement are criticizing the voucher for a $55,000 all-expenses-paid trip to Israel that is being offered to major Oscar nominees as part of this year’s $200,000 Academy Awards gift package.

Israel’s Tourism Ministry is offering the trip to the 26 stars nominated in the directing and acting categories, such as Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon, said ministry spokeswoman Lydia Weitzman, according to the Associated Press.

BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti said that through the trip voucher, Israel “is desperately trying to fight its increasing international isolation through bribes and intimidation rather than by ending its occupation and apartheid,” and that “there are no Hunger Games in Gaza, but there is real hunger.”

Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, however, said the celebrities’ visit to Israel “will have enormous resonance among millions of fans.”