BDS activists protest Israel in Oslo, Norway
BDS activists protest Israel in Oslo, NorwayiStock

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement on Wednesday welcomed the decision of the newly-installed Oslo City Council to ban Israeli “settlement” goods and services from public procurements as part of the Norwegian capital’s platform for 2019-2023.

“Stressing the illegal status of Israeli settlement on Palestinian lands as a violation of international law, referring to the 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 that reaffirmed the illegality of the settlements under international law, and recalling the well-known special commitment of the great Norwegian Nation to international law and human rights the Fatah movement welcomes the decision of the newly installed City Council of Oslo to ban Israeli settlement goods and services from public procurements as part of Oslo’s platform for 2019-2023," said the spokesman of Fatah in Europe, Jamal Nazzal, in a statement quoted by the PA’s official Wafa news agency.

Nazzal said his movement views the boycott of all goods and services coming from “Israeli settlements” built on Palestinian lands occupied since 1967 as “a legitimate means to discourage settlers from the ongoing illegal acquisition of land either by force or by illegal confiscation.”

“In 2019, no one should make a mistake about the true nature of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is by far not an ideologically driven movement as the extreme right ruling Israel wishes to see it, but rather an economically, profit-oriented colonialist project aimed at exploiting our resources through the illegal occupation of our country,” he charged.

Nazzal called “on our friends throughout the world to not only resist the concerted efforts by Israel worldwide aimed at repressing accountability measures but also to follow suit on the decision Oslo has taken recently.”

The ban recently announced by the Oslo City Council does not distinguish between Israeli and international corporations that operate in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Just last week, Mohammed Shtayyeh, the head of the PA cabinet, called on the EU to boycott “settlement products” as part of a strategy to force Israel to comply with international law.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat has made similar calls in the past.

The European Commission in 2015 issued guidelines for labeling products from Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and neighborhoods of Jerusalem liberated during the 1967 Six Day War.