(JTA) —  Echoing the Israeli government’s policy of vigorously opposing attempts to isolate it through boycotts, the World Jewish Congress pledged to make the fight a top priority.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Launder made this pledge on Tuesday at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, at an event it organized together with Israel’s foreign ministry focusing on combating diplomatic attacks against the Jewish state and the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, against Israel.

The World Jewish Congress “will commit all of our resources, and all of our abilities, to help fight BDS,” Lauder said during a speech at the opening plenary in the UN General Assembly Hall. More than 1,500 students, dignitaries, public officials and representatives of Jewish organizations took part in the conference, which was one of the largest events organized by Israel on the subject so far.

Lauder also criticized the United Nations, which he said was now “singling out the only Jewish state for criticism” after having been “created on the broken bones of the Jewish people” after World War II. “It is no accident that we chose to look at an equally dishonest campaign against the Jews – the BDS-movement – right here at the United Nations,” he said. “BDS is a modern-day anti-Semitism,” he also said.

Advocates of the boycott against Israel say it is a legitimate form of nonviolent opposition to Israel’s occupation of lands they view as belonging to the Palestinians, but critics of the effort argue it is aimed at ending Israel’s existence as a Jewish nation state.

In recent months, the legislatures of several US states passed motions against BDS. The issue is the subject of an intense legal fight across Europe.

BDS is illegal in France as per a 2003 law that prohibits discrimination against a certain nation or its people. On Monday, a representative of PayPal, the online money transfer service, told a journalist from Dreuz, a pro-Israel French news site, who had queried the firm over the account of the France branch of the BDS movement, that PayPal “devotes many efforts to countering abuse toward illegal means of our service.” Shortly thereafter, the account became unusable, The Jerusalem Post reported. The PayPal button has since been removed from the website of BDS France.

Earlier last month, Credit Mutuel, a major French bank, closed that branch’s account, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Britain’s government said earlier this year that it was formulating similar legislation. In Spain, several courts have declared the BDS movement discriminatory, including a constitutional tribunal that ruled in May that BDS is also anti-constitutional.

But elsewhere in Europe, government officials have either defended BDS activists’ right to advertise it. Asked in parliament on this issue, Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders on Thursday said this position was protected under freedom of expression, the Reformatorisch Dagblad daily reported. The Dutch government, however, opposes boycotting Israel. He also said the Dutch government would not revoke the tax-exempt nonprofit status of entities supporting BDS.

“The Dutch line is that the government is opposed to boycotts of Israel but advertising BDS falls under freedom of expression,” Koenders wrote on May 19 to a lawmaker who queried his office on the matter. Unlike many other European countries, the Netherlands does not have a law against denying the Holocaust for the same reason.

Separately, Irish Foreign Minister Charles Flanagan said Thursday in parliament that while his government “does not itself support such a policy, it is a legitimate political viewpoint, albeit one regarded in Israel as deeply hostile,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

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