From New York Magazine:
The state of Israel maintains a military occupation of territories that were assigned to Palestinians by international law. Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank are subjected to the discriminatory rule of a foreign army, while their Israeli neighbors enjoy the full rights of citizenship — a situation that many former Israeli officials have likened to South African apartheid.
Of course, it’s not only “former Israeli officials” who have made that comparison. As a result, many Americans and American businesses have decided that in order to influence Israel’s policies, it makes sense to boycott goods manufactured by Israeli companies situated in the Occupied Territories. Some have gone further, reasonably concluding that it makes little sense to limit such a boycott to West-Bank manufactured goods, but to extend it to any goods made in Israel.
In response, 43 US Senators, including 14 Democrats, have rallied behind a bill that would criminalize such measures:
[A] law that would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel, which was launched in protest of that country’s decades-old occupation of Palestine. The two primary sponsors of the bill are Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio. Perhaps the most shocking aspect is the punishment: Anyone guilty of violating the prohibitions will face a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison.
As previously reported by Josh Ruebner of The Intercept, Democratic Senator Ben Cardin previously attempted to sneak this insidious provision into a trade bill. With the election of an anti-trade Trump Administration, however, the likelihood of such a measure becoming actual law was diminished. So Cardin, at the behest of AIPAC, went back to the drawing board:
The proposed measure, called the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720), was introduced by Cardin on March 23. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the bill “was drafted with the assistance of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.” Indeed, AIPAC, in its 2017 lobbying agenda, identified passage of this bill as one of its top lobbying priorities for the year...[.]
The Bill is as oily as something we might expect from ALEC:
The draconian nature of the bill is shrewdly shrouded. None of the above-mentioned sanctions are specified in the actual text of the bill.
Only by closely examining the underlying laws which would be amended by this bill does its intent become evident: to harshly punish those companies which exercise their First Amendment-protected right to engage in boycotts of Israeli settlement products.
The bill seeks to amend two laws – the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 – to accomplish its aim.
The “Export Administration Act of 1979” and the “Export-Import Bank Act of 1945” prohibited U.S. persons from complying with a foreign government’s request to boycott a country friendly to the U.S. According to the ACLU, this Bill would amend those laws to bar U.S. persons from supporting boycotts against Israel, including its settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, conducted by international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union.
Significantly, the Bill does not speak only to companies, but individuals as well. Under the law, according to the ACLU’s analysis, businesses and individuals who oppose Israel’s policies purely on pragmatic (i.e., economic) reasons would not have to fear prosecution. It is only those businesses—and individuals—who actively and economically oppose Israel on political grounds who would risk punishment.
Democrats supporting this abomination include Kirsten Gillibrand, Charles Schumer, Ron Wyden and Richard Blumenthal. The House introduced a bill in tandem with the Senate, which has already accumulated 234 co-sponsors, well more than a Majority needed to pass it along for Donald Trump’s rubber stamp of approval. Glenn Greenwald trenchantly observes that some Democrats who have championed themselves as heroes of the Trump “Resistance” are co-sponsors of this Bill, which leads one to question just how valid their anti-authoritarian impulses are.
I almost reflexively disagree with Greenwald on anything. But in this case he appears to have a point.
The ACLU is trying to stop this madness. From a letter it has sent to the United States Congress:
The bill would amend those laws to bar U.S. persons from supporting boycotts against Israel, including its settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, conducted by international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union. It would also broaden the law to include penalties for simply requesting information about such boycott.
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This bill would impose civil and criminal punishment on individuals solely because of their political beliefs about Israel and its policies.
What the Bill does is buried in fine print, which may explain why so many Democrats in hock to—or in fear of--AIPAC have perhaps cluelessly signed on to it. But the impact on our right to exercise free speech is enormous. As noted in New York Magazine, which positively reiterated The Intercept’s reporting:
In the Intercept’s account, the lawmakers supporting this bill aren’t necessarily comfortable with putting people in prison for the crime of allowing their beliefs about Israeli policy to dictate their consumption habits. Rather, many appear to have simply signed their names to a piece of legislation because AIPAC put it in front of them.
One Senator’s response was characteristic:
[S]ome co-sponsors seemed not to have any idea what they co-sponsored – almost as though they reflexively sign whatever comes from AIPAC without having any idea what’s in it. Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, for instance, seemed genuinely bewildered when told of the ACLU’s letter, saying “what’s the Act? You’ll have to get back to me on that.”
But the most shocking—and damning--expression of ignorance came from the Bill’s sponsor, who apparently never bothered to read what he had sponsored:
Perhaps most stunning is our interview with the primary sponsor of the bill, Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin, who seemed to have no idea what was in his bill, particularly insisting that it contains no criminal penalties.
It’s becoming clear that the Trump Administration is not the only enemy of our Democracy.