The anti-Israel Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement suffered a setback in Belgium after calls by several BDS-linked organisations for the country to cancell its participation in a European cooperation project which is led by an Israeli institution.

The project, funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Horizon 2020 programme, is called ‘’Law-Train’’ and aims to develop technology to standardize police interrogation methods in the fight against drug trafficking. All the investigators see each other and work as a team and a generated database provides a powerful tool to fight international organized crime.

It is coordinated by the Bar Ilan University’s Department of Computer Science. One of the partners of the project is the Israeli Ministry of Public Security.

Belgian BDS-linked groups had called on the Belgian government and the EU to stop their participation to the project on ground of ‘’violations of human rights’’ by the Israeli police.

However, they didn’t succeed. CCOJB, the umbrella representative group of Belgian Jewish organisations, called on the Belgian authorities ‘’to not cede to fallacious pressures from groups which are endangering projects which are able to benefit the whole Belgian population.’’

Also the European Commission rejected the arguments of the BDS-linked groups.

‘’We welcome the decision of our authorities taken in a just and reflected manner, despite the pressures,’’ stated Yohan Benizri, head of CCOJB. ‘’Our organisation opposes, as it dit in the past, any form of boycott which contributes more to importing the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict in our country than to exporting peace solutions,’’ he added.