At a major conference in the European Parliament on Wednesday, Public Security Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) presented a new report about anti-Semitism and BDS.

Speaking at the conference, Erdan said: "Exposing and combating BDS is urgent. As we see, anti-Semitism is rising across Europe. The EU (European Union - ed,) claims to have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, so if that is true, it must have zero tolerance to BDS."

"In 2018, there were 387 violent anti-Semitic attacks reported against Jews in the West - a 13% rise. This is just the number of attacks that were reported. The real number is much higher.

"There were 68 violent attacks in the UK, 35 attacks in France, the same number in Germany, and 19 attacks right here in Belgium. Jews were murdered in anti-Semitic attacks and studies found direct links between campus BDS activity and a hostile environment for Jews on campuses."

Calling for BDS anti-Semitism to be fought together with far-right and Islamic anti-Semitism, Erdan added: "BDS anti-Semitism is particularly dangerous, because it mainstreams and normalizes anti-Semitism, and desensitizes western audiences to its hate."

BDS "tries to portray itself as a human rights movement," he said. "It is not."

Also speaking at the event were EU and US envoys on Monitoring and Combating anti-Smitism, Ms. Katharina Von Schnurbein, Mr. Elan S Carr, and European Jewish Association Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin.