The student parliament at Germany’s Cologne University passed a resolution banning activities by the anti-Israel Boycott movement, or BDS, from the campus. The organizations and activists linked to BDS “should not be offered a platform at the University of Cologne,” the student representative body said in declaration passed in October 2018.
The student parliament pointed to the resurgence of Jew hatred in Germany. The antisemitism was once again “shockingly relevant.” “People wearing Kippah are being attacked in broad daylight. This situation is unacceptable and therefore it must be met with indignation and resistance,” the resolution said. The student body criticized the administration for conferring prestigious professorships to leading ‘BDS figureheads’ such as Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler.
“Modern anti-Semitism is often directed against the State of Israel,” Cologne’s student body said commenting on the resolution. “BDS is a transnational political campaign that wants to isolate the state of Israel economically, culturally and politically, using various antisemitic stereotypes.”
Here is the full text of the resolution titled “Fight BDS Movement: No room for Antisemitism at the University of Cologne”: