Thanks to ACOM the courts have annulled the boycott against Israel by the City Council of Valencia

Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, with a population of 800,000 people, receiving more than 2,000,000 tourists every year, and is one of the main sea ports in Europe.

This new legal blow against the BDS movement proves that it is a clearly discriminatory and illegal movement.

Since 31 May 2018 the Valencians have lived under an unconstitutional regulation.

Madrid, June 2019

On 5 June Court Number 9 of Valencia ruled on the suits presented by ACOM, declaring illegal the adherence of the City Council of Valencia to the discriminatory movement “Space free of Israeli Apartheid” or ELAI for its Spanish initials, and its will to boycott persons and organizations linked with or rooted in the state of Israel.

The motion approved on 31 May 2018 was promoted by Podemos (extreme left) and supported by the rest of the Town Hall, Compromis (left linked to Catalonian separatism) and PSOE (socialist party). The opposition, PP (conservative) and Ciudadanos (liberals) voted against it.

For a year the citizens of Valencia have had to live under this discriminatory regulation thanks to the sickening anti-Semite obsession of the radical groups nurtured by public grants and the councillors who act as a transmission belt for their initiatives. This decision of boycott proclaimed the city “space free of Israeli Apartheid”, affiliating the City Council to the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This resolution forced the institution, its public bodies and civil servants, to abstain from cooperating with Israel in areas such as agriculture, education, commerce, culture or security.

The Court emphasised that the refuted agreement violates the fundamental right to equality of Article 14 of the Spanish Constitution, as it introduces ideological criteria in the selection of contractors. The sentence indicates, literally, that “it is obvious that its aim was precisely to exclude from hiring persons and organizations in any way linked with or rooted in the state of Israel”.

For Angel Mas, President of ACOM: “The Valencian Community is in a serious institutional situation due to the strong link of certain political parties with anti-Semite movements that are promoting from the institutions the hatred and discrimination against Jews”.

This sentence throws light again on a clearly discriminatory and illegal movement. We should remember that the City Council of Valencia approved said motion having been warned previously by ACOM of the legal risks the Town Hall was taking.

The sickening discriminatory obsession of the City Council, and especially of the party linked to Podemos, València en Comú, for approving these legal measures is not new. Already in 2017 the Chavist formation intended to vote in the plenary session the adherence of the city to the discriminatory movement BDS-ELAI.
It is also worth remembering that the inspirers of the motions like the one of the City Council of Valencia, the group constituted with the name BDS Pais Valencià (with no legal constitution) has nine of its members accused for serious crimes of harassment, coercion and aggression against the American Jewish artist Matisyahu in summer of 2015.

ACOM, the main denouncer of the discourse of hatred and/or discrimination for ethnic or national reasons that this movement promotes, has achieved that more than 40 agreements of adherence to BDS-ELAI have been annulled by court resolution or by the City Councils themselves renouncing when knowing of the illegality of said agreements.