Spanish court strikes another city’s anti-Israel resolution

For the second time in less than a year, a high court in Spain scrapped the adoption of a boycott against Israel by a municipality.

The Superior Tribunal of Justice of Madrid in its decision last week affirmed a lower court ruling in January against the resolution last year endorsing the boycott by the city council of the Rivas Vaciamadrid suburb. The high court said the council’s adherence to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel was “discriminatory.”

The court also rejected explicitly the council’s argument that its boycott resolution was anchored in UN resolutions against Israel, the pro-Israel group ACOM wrote in a statement published Tuesday about the appeal. ACOM initiated the original case against the municipality.

In October, a Spanish high court in the Asturias region declared a BDS resolution illegal and discriminatory in a suit also filed by ACOM. The group had sued the Langreo City Council over its support for BDS.

Over the past two years, pro-Israel activists have obtained dozens of rulings, legal opinions and injunctions against BDS in Spain. Some 50 Spanish municipalities have passed resolutions in recent years endorsing BDS — more than in any other European country.

In neighboring France, promoting the BDS movement is illegal under legislation from 2003 that lists efforts to bring about the singling out of nations and their peoples as a form of hate crime. Similar legislation is being prepared in Britain, the government said last year.