NY State Bills Targeting Israel Boycotters 'Harken Back to McCarthy Era,' Legal Organizations Charge

[Purveyor]

Source: Haaretz

Bills, which prohibit state from doing business with anyone boycotting Israel, would effectively create a blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists, organizations say.

Haaretz Feb 09, 2016 10:29 PM

Two bills by N.Y. state legislators seeking to sanction individuals and groups that boycott Israel have been scrutinized by legal organizations, who claim they "harken back to the McCarthy era," Salon reported on Tuesday.  

The bills, which are currently pending in the state legislature, would prohibit the state from making investments or contracts with anyone who boycotts Israel or other U.S. allies. But the National Lawyers Guild, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal said the bills would effectively create a blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists. 

“The courts long ago found such McCarthy-era legislation to be at war with the First Amendment,” the three organizations said in a memorandum issued to New York state legislators after the first bill, S6378A, was adopted by the State Senate. The groups requested the bills be withdrawn, as they "unconstitutionally target core political speech activities and infringe on the freedom to express political beliefs.”

While S6378A targets boycotts of U.S. allies in general, the justification section of the sponsor's memo specifically mentions "questionably motivated" members of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction Movement, known as BDS, as promoting activities against U.S. allies. "This behavior not only hurts the state, its interests and its citizens, but seeks to advance anti-Semitisic [sic], anti-freedom and anti-capitalism principles," says the memo. 


Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.702370

[ericson00]

1. GOOD! if my state rep doesn't vote for it,

I will vote for his opponent. Remember, Americans are pretty much all stripes honour the Jewish State of Israel:

[StoneCarver]

2. Wow

You're a sad excuse for a progressive. Anyone who supports an apartheid state doesn't belong here. Don't believe me -just ask Jimmy Carter.
Stonecarver

[ericson00]

3. tell that the the plurality of liberal Dems and moderate/conservative Dems

who also support the Jewish State of Israel, which is not an apartheid state.

Hard to call the only free country, per Freedom House, in the ME, an "apartheid state" when Arabs/Muslims sit in the same parliament with Jews and Druze.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. So you want the state to discriminate against an individual for a political act?

The bill is totalitarian - it seeks to control the political actions of citizens.

You do get the reason this is being compared to McCarthy, don't you?

[6chars]

6. what's that green smudge?

[ericson00]

7. the one free state in the ME: the Jewish State of Israel

n/t

[atreides1]

8. The term "free"

Is subject to interpretation! Let's just say it's freer then the other ME states, but it's not really free, free!!!

[sulphurdunn]

11. You might want to research Freedom Houses's

analysis of Israel in a bit more detail, and you will find that Israel does not grant the same freedoms to its Palestinian citizens that it does to Jews and grants virtually none to those under its military occupation.

[markj757]

5. What bullshit.....

Most Americans don't honor Israel and never have. We simply may have been more willing in the past to give them the benefit of the doubt about security concerns, based on the constant stream of biased news reporting we were fed here in the US. That situation is finally beginning to change, especially in the Democratic party, thanks to Bibi and the other extremist in Israel. It is very disappointing that our elected leaders in the Democratic party do not reflect the true will of the majority of Democrats on this issue, but BDS is gaining ground, not because it is anti-semitic, but because it is just. While some on the right may see our diversity in the US as a weakness, I think it gives us a special connection to the entire world, and makes us instinctively know what is moral and right. And although we have had a terrible legacy on some issues of social justice in the past, we are now the moral compass for the entire planet. Its one of the many things I love about who we are, and what we have become as a nation. And why BDS will prevail!

[sulphurdunn]

9. What exactly does your chart

have to do with the right of Americans not to love Israel or not to do business with Israel for any reason they choose and not be punished for it? The apartheid regime of South Africa was popular with Americans and Israelis too.

[ericson00]

10. show me a polls that had nearly 4:1 of Americans

favoring the apartheid regime over its opponents. You can't.

[sulphurdunn]

12. You are missing the point entirely.

This shouldn't have anything to do with Israel one way or another. Constitutional rights are not a popularity contest. They don't depend on what a majority thinks about them unless they can amend the constitution. Now, it is illegal for me to discriminate against Americans or anyone on American soil in my business dealings for any reason. I should be able to refuse to do business with any foreign government I want without fear of sanctions by my own. That notion is not only absurd, it is also scary.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. And one bill explicitly says it's OK to boycott Venezuela

showing this is really McCarthyite.

The text of S6378A calls for punishing groups that boycott not just Israel, but all “American allied nations,” which it defines as Israel, Ireland, Japan, Korea, all members of NATO (this includes most of Europe and Turkey), countries that signed the Southeast Asia Treaty of 1954 and any country that is a signatory of the Rio Treaty of 1947 — excluding Venezuela, which it singles out. The bill would allow Americans to boycott Venezuela, whose democratically elected socialist government the U.S. helped overthrow in 2002.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/09/21st_century_mccarthyism_ny_bills_would_make_a_blacklist_of_those_boycotting_israel_over_human_rights_violations/