The co-founder of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement was denied entry to the UK.
Friday, it was publicized that Omar Barghouti, committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, was denied entrance to the UK due to an “unexplained” delay in his visa application.
Barghouti was scheduled to speak at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) event in Brighton on Sunday, together with Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, and chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East Lisa Nandy.
The PSC organization announced Friday, on its website, “Barghouti is unable to travel to the UK because his visa was abnormally delayed by the British Government without explanation.” It claimed that the denial of Barghouti’s visa was “part and parcel of the growing efforts by Israel and its allies to suppress Palestinian voices and the movements for Palestinian rights.”
Barghouti instead spoke at the “Palestine in the age of Trump” gathering via a video.
Britain’s Jewish Chronicle newspaper reported that Barghouti would also speak via video at The World Transformed event, a four-day gathering connected to the UK’s Labour Party, lead by Jeremy Corbyn and known for its anti-Semitic sentiments. The gathering describes itself as being “about setting a radical agenda for the Corbyn project and beyond.”
Barghouti’s talk at this grassroots festival is reportedly called “Criminalizing Solidarity.”
The BDS co-founder advocates for a single-nation state that does not recognize Jewish rights as that would “imply accepting their right to self-determination.”
“Barghouti’s real programme is, in my view, conquest, albeit in two stages,” Professor Alan Johnson, editor of Bicom’s journal, Fathom explains. “First, the BDS movement is to isolate Israel from its allies. Second, the local hard men, Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘friends’ and ‘brothers’, are to take Israel out.”
Ironically, Barghouti holds a Master’s degree in philosophy (ethics) from Tel Aviv University and is presently pursuing a PhD there.
