The following statement was issued today by the U.S. Committee for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and endorsed by five Palestine solidarity groups (named below):
On Monday, 11 July 2011, the Israeli Knesset passed new legislation outlawing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, a non-partisan grassroots initiative that seeks to pressure Israel to comply with international law and recognize fundamental Palestinian rights.
The bill bans all advocacy and action to boycott any Israeli companies, within Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. Furthermore, any company can be awarded compensation without even having to prove direct damage. The law is so broad that it could potentially be used not only against citizens of Israel, but also against Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. The legislation leaves Palestinian and Israeli solidarity groups who promote the boycott of any Israeli company liable to be sued and the vagueness of the bill opens all activists to arbitrary persecution.
We, Palestine solidarity and social justice groups based in the United States, reiterate our support and endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement. We stand by our friends who will be legally subject to this draconian bill, which seeks to further deligitimize the non-violent struggle against Israeli apartheid.
This latest escalation in Israeli repression tactics aims to stifle the BDS movement. The call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, endorsed by over 170 Palestinian civil society groups in 2005, has been adopted by hundreds of solidarity organizations worldwide that seek to put pressure on Israel until it complies with international law.
Not only do Palestinian and Israeli groups actively organize campaigns within Israel and occupied Palestine; but projects like Who Profits? also educate the international community by researching the true dealings of Israeli companies and enable many campaigns in the justice for Palestine movement.
This bill follows upon the ‘Nakba law’, which defunded any institution that acknowledged the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. Such repressive legislation particularly targets Palestinians inside Israel, who are already subject to apartheid and extensive institutionalized racism as well as political persecution.
Israel has maintained such discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, alongside its illegal siege of Gaza, its brutal military occupation of the West Bank, its de facto annexation of East Jerusalem, its ongoing denial of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees and its policies of ethnic cleansing since before 1948.
Additionally, Israel recently suppressed other non-violent initiatives; pressuring foreign governments to obstruct the Freedom Flotilla II, which was organized to challenge the illegal blockade and siege of the Gaza Strip and the “Flytilla” which brought to light that Palestinians cannot even receive visitors.
The global BDS Movement will not be stopped, intimidated or harmed by this latest Israeli attempt to repress the legitimate struggle for Palestinian rights. We will heed the Palestinian call to escalate our BDS campaigns. We stand side by side with our sisters and brothers in this struggle for rights and justice.
Signed:
The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Al-Awda New York, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition
CODEPINK Women for Peace
International Solidarity Movement -USA Free Gaza Movement -USA
Siege Busters Working Group
Thanks to Peter Beinart for pointing to this.
link to adl.org
Knesset Anti-Boycott Law May Infringe On Basic Democratic Rights
Jerusalem, July 12, 2011 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today expressed concern about a law passed in the Israeli parliament which imposes legal liability for damages against anyone calling for a boycott of Israel, including economic, academic, cultural, and other blacklisting.
The law enables Israeli citizens to bring civil suits against people or organizations instigating anti-Israel boycotts, and bars companies which participate in any boycott, including of goods produced in the West Bank, from bidding for Israeli government tenders.
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, who is currently in Israel, issued the following statement:
The Anti-Defamation League has a long history of vigorous opposition to any and all boycotts of Israel, and works every day to expose and combat those who seek to cause damage to the Jewish state. We are, however, concerned that this law may unduly impinge on the basic democratic rights of Israelis to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
Among Israel’s many assets is its vibrant democracy – a fact clearly supported by the six-plus hour debate of this bill in the Knesset. To legally stifle calls to action – however abhorrent and detrimental they might be – is a disservice to Israeli society. We hope Israel’s Supreme Court will quickly take up a review of this law and resolve the concerns it raises.
“May” weak
“…boycotts against the settlements or any other region of the country are not a democratic way to determine democratic oversight.” Yuval Steinitz, finance minister, defending new law.
link to guardian.co.uk
From which i gather, he considers the West Bank part of Israel, but is quite oblivious to the lack of democracy, let alone citizenship, available to the vast majority of its indigenous residents.
I 100% support the legislation, hope it doesn’t get overturned and hope more of the same kind of laws are implemented ASAP.
The sooner Israeli society is exposed for what it is, instead of being of sold to the west for all that it isn’t, the better.
The same sponsors have complained in the past about the PA closing dozens of businesses in one settlement alone and harming hundreds of others with its boycott. They also stressed the need to target the revenues collected for the PA by the government of Israel to keep them from being used to support the PA Boycott and the National Honor Fund established for former settlement laborers, e.g. here and here
The big question is: Has the occupation and the military commander become irrelevant under this bill? If Israel starts applying its own municipal laws and civil judgments to the Palestinians in “Judea” and “Samaria” directly, then ipso jure annexation has occurred. If that has happened, the Palestinians couldn’t demand that settlements loose their subsidies or be removed during final status negotiations without violating their civil duty under the terms of the boycott bill. That would make further “negotiations” utterly pointless. If the government of Israel can exercise jurisdiction, collect revenues, create and impose new civil duties, and assess fines or penalties on the Palestinians, then they deserve the right to vote for their own representatives in that government. So, Israeli freedom of expression isn’t the only issue.
This is mindboggling. Israel is claiming jurisdiction over the whole of the West Bank and Gaza, despite all their disingenuous attempts to claim that Palestinians there live in a separate, non-israeli sphere. They can’t have it both ways – if these regions are under Israeli jurisdiction, then the people there are Israeli citizens and entitled to the rights which come with that. The fiction that Israel maintains, which gives it elastic borders according to its political needs, is ridiculous. Like the blockade and siege, Israeli arrogance is astonishing – just make up laws which apply outside of their country and claim that gives them the right of life and death over people not considered to be in israel. Contrary to their prejudiced mindset, they have no right over people who they refuse to grant any human rights to. Isn’t it called fascism when people award themselves rights over others based solely on cultural and social divisions, granting themselves superior ity and absolute rights over people they have stripped of their humanity?