Ottawa, August 11 (RHC)-- Despite pressure from pro-Israeli groups and opposition from its own party leader, Canada's Green Party has endorsed a growing international boycott against Israel's occupation as part of its official platform.

After hours of contentious debate in the final plenary session of the party’s national convention in Ottawa, the Green Party passed a resolution to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which targets sectors of the Israeli economy in much the same fashion as international sanctions targeted South Africa's white minority apartheid government in the 1980s. The party also agreed to oppose efforts to sanction the BDS movement.

Created in 2005, the BDS movement is an attempt by more than 170 Palestinian organizations to pressure Israel to conform to international legal norms, cease new settlement construction, end discriminatory practices and enter into good-faith negotiations to end its nearly 50-year occupation.

But as the movement has gathered momentum internationally, so too has the backlash against it. Just in the last two months, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation banning state agencies from doing business with any vendors who supported the BDS movement, and New Jersey followed suit just a week later. Canada’s parliament passed a non-binding resolution condemning BDS earlier this year.

That motion, supported by the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, described BDS as “anti-Israel” and “a form of discrimination” and called for the government to condemn any individuals or groups that promote it within Canada.