Roundup: Israel squeezed with boycott for stance over settlements

Israel has been facing increasing pressure of boycott from the international community since last week, which worsened Thursday as French telecom giant Orange seeks to cut business ties with it.

The CEO of Orange company Stephen Richard announced in Cairo that his group aims to end relationship with its Israeli operator Partner over its activities in the Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, if wasn't for the prospects of high fines.

Settlements are considered illegal according to international law.

"I want to terminate this. But I don't want to expose Orange to a level of risk and of penalties that could be really sizable for the company," Richard said.

In a statement issued in Paris on Thursday, the partly state-owned cellular company said it doesn't want to maintain a presence in countries where Orange itself is not a phone provider, defending its pull-out of Israel market as only for business reasons, not political ones.

Orange is one of the biggest cellular providers in Israel. Anti-occupation activists in France have been pressuring their government, which holds 25 percent stake at Orange's parent company France Telecom, to end its relationship with Partner.

Calling it "absurd drama," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted by urging the French government to publicly condemn Orange company for severing ties with its Israeli subsidiary.

"I call on the French government to publicly repudiate the miserable statement and miserable action by a company that is under its partial ownership," Netanyahu made the remards when attending a memorial ceremony in Israel on Thursday.

Netanyahu's remarks were echoed by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who called the Orange annoucement "another attack from anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bodies, who have chosen to delegitimize the State of Israel."

Israel has been facing mounting pressure and criticism from the international community, as it marks 48 years of occupation of the Palestinian territories in West Bank and annexation of east Jerusalem from the 1967 Mideast War.

The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has gained more momentum recently as the Palestinians tried to carry out unilateral moves in the diplomatic international arena, following the collapse of the peace talks, in efforts to end the occupation.

In the past week several developments mired Israel in fear of international boycotts and Israeli politicians denounced the criticism of the international community as biased against Israel and called it a "new guise of antisemitism."

Netanyahu said there is an international campaign to smear Israel's name and tried to link boycott attempts with "historic anti-Semitism."

Israeli officials are concerned for a diplomatic backlash, amid the state's strained relationship with European countries and the United States, especially amid Netanyahu's new right-wing government, which did not mention the peace process in its coalition agreements signed last month. Endit