The Christian Recruitment Forum and the Zionist Foundation for Israel have revealed that a leading BDS organization is acting freely in Israel, despite violating Israeli laws.
Israel Hayom reports that the World Council of Churches (WCC), one of the world's leading proponents of BDS, founded the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) in 2002 with the goal of "ending the illegal occupation of Palestine."
As part of EAPPI, 80 Christians enter Israel as tourists each year. Once inside, they monitor and photograph security forces, then give lectures at campuses around Europe after returning home.
The participants frequently accuse Israel of planting weapons on dead terrorists, indiscriminately slaughtering Palestinian children, harassing Christians in Jerusalem and more. They further claim that any opposition to Israel is silence by the United States' "Israel Lobby."
Over a thousand such activists have already taken part in the program.
The recent study, which began in February 2015, found that the EAPPI activists enter Israel under tourist visas, ignoring the requirements for volunteers and activists.
Father Gabriel Naddaf, the spiritual leader of Israel's Armenian Christians and the head of the Christian Recruitment Forum, told Israel Hayom, "I will continue acting and exposing any organization or program that portrays itself as Christian and that acts against the State of Israel, the safest place for Christians in the Middle East. They are trying to weaken the country in the face of regional terror, while taking advantage of the Christian faith, rewriting history, harming true coexistence and the relationship between Christians and Jews in the country and in the world, and increasing anti-Semitism."
Father Naddaf further added that "The Christian world must know exactly who is behind the masks and who is distorting Christianity in order to advance a radical agenda."
The Population and Immigration Authority denied that it can do anything to stop EAPPI from flouting the law. "If there is no reason to suspect someone's motives when they enter as a tourist, there is no reason to prevent their entrance."
Similarly, a police spokesperson said that "the Population Authority is the body responsible for giving out entrance visas to Israel. If the police are informed of problems with a tourist, we have no way of knowing what they do while in Israel."
Minister for Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan (Likud), however, has promised to take action: "No normal country would allow activists trying to boycott it to enter and act freely. Here, too, we will do all we can to end this despicable phenomenon within the next few months."