Anti-BDS bill clears first major hurdle in US Congress
Senate passes Middle East bill that includes provision against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
Senator Marco Rubio said states have a right to ban companies that boycott Israel (AFP/File photo)
WASHINGTON - The US Senate has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill that encourages states to cut off contractors who boycott Israel, a measure included in a wider Middle East policy bill that reinforces Washington's support for Israel and Jordan.
The bill, which passed in a 77-23 vote on Tuesday, says US states can "divest" from contractors they disagree with on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Free speech and Palestinian advocacy groups have slammed the bill, accusing its sponsors of aiming to muzzle criticism of Israel at the expense of the US constitution.
However, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced the measure, has fiercely argued in its defence, saying that states have a right to "boycott the boycotters".
You theory has one big problem, I filed this bill over a year ago with strong bipartisan support.
It has only now become controversial due to opposition from the ACLU, combined with the growing influence of Anti-Israel/Pro-BDS voices on the left after the midterms.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had urged US lawmakers to block the measure.
"First Amendment rights belong to the people, not the government," the group said last month in response to Rubio. "The government cannot impose its views on people or punish them for expressing views that the government disagrees with."
While Rubio's bill boosts local and state efforts against boycotting Israel, it also extends to boycotts of "Israeli-controlled territories", effectively targeting boycotts of Israeli businesses in the illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights.
You are saying put aside free speech – if you support Israel, you have to vote for it and you have to vote against your own constitution-Lara Friedman, president of Foundation for Middle East Peace
The proposal is named the "Combating BDS Act of 2019" in reference to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to pressure Israel economically and politically to end its abuses against Palestinians.
Last week, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen accused Rubio of aiming to restrict free speech, calling anti-BDS state laws "blatantly unconstitutional".
While stressing that he does not support boycotting Israel, Van Hollen said that US citizens should be able to express their political opinions without fear of being punished by their government.
"I will fiercely defend the constitutional rights of any American citizen to express his or her views in such a peaceful way, if they so choose," he said on the Senate floor during a debate of the bill.
Dozens of states have passed various forms of anti-BDS bills in recent years, but several of those measures are currently being challenged in courts across the country.
Federal judges in Arizona and Kansas declared anti-boycott laws in those states unconstitutional, for example.
However, legal efforts to counter these measures were dealt a blow last week when a US court in Arkansas ruled against a newspaper seeking to overturn the state's anti-BDS law.
On 23 January, Judge Brian Miller denied a request by the Arkansas Times to suspend the law. The newspaper had refused to sign a pledge certifying that it does not boycott Israel in order to run ads for state agencies.
However, Miller did not rule that the Arkansas law is constitutional; instead, he said the Times "failed to show" that boycotting Israel "is protected by the First Amendment".
Lara Friedman, president of the Washington, DC-based nonprofit Foundation for Middle East Peace, told MEE last month that while the US Senate bill has been a lightning rod for political sparring over the BDS movement, the real issue is free speech.
"You are saying put aside free speech – if you support Israel, you have to vote for it and you have to vote against your own constitution," Friedman told MEE. “This is not a vote that anyone should have to take.”
