Double standard in US political culture: BDS is fine for Indiana, not Israel

The news is filled with outrage over the Indiana legislature’s enactment of a bill that would protect “religious freedom” by allowing businesses to discriminate against LGBT people to whom a business-owner objects. There have been wide calls to isolate and boycott Indiana over the discriminatory law. The AP reports:

Businesses and organizations are canceling events and barring travel to Indiana over a religious objections law that critics say would allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.

That article lists a number of performers and organizations that have canceled appearances in Indiana. And lots of states have imposed travel bans.

The list of cities and states banning government-funded travel continues to grow. Governors in Connecticut, New York, Washington state and Vermont have barred travel over the law, along with mayors in New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver and Washington, D.C

There’s even action from within: Indianapolis is pressuring the state government.

Bear in mind that the law was passed last week, and the governor of Indiana signed it a week ago. The alacrity of the boycott movement, and its enthusiastic coverage in the media, stand in stark contrast to the widespread efforts in our mainstream political culture to stifle actions to boycott Israel over its openly-discriminatory practices. This is a country whose Prime Minister issued an election-day appeal to Jewish voters to counter “Arab voters” coming out in droves– an appeal that our State Department condemned. Israel has at least 30 laws that discriminate between Jews and Arabs inside Israel, including the ability to buy land and to marry; and the 4-5 million Palestinians inside territories occupied by Israel have no rights to speak of. Their situation is widely described as apartheid or even slavery.

There is a global movement to boycott Israel — the BDS movement, or boycott, divestment and sanctions movement — that is racking up victories around the world. But American leaders are deadset against it, including liberal Democrats who are spearheading the boycott Indiana movement. Lawrence Summers and other Democratic figures have described the movement as “anti-Semitic.”

Last week the leading Israel lobby group AIPAC crowed about a bill in Congress to stop BDS:

Bipartisan Bill to Combat BDS Movement Introduced in Congress

The legislation, which AIPAC designed and worked on drafting for months, would impose penalties on countries that support boycott measures against Israel.

Over the past several years, a growing contingency of countries across the globe have sought to isolate and delegitimize Israel through BDS. This bill leverages ongoing trade negotiations to discourage prospective U.S. trade partners from engaging in economic discrimination against Israel

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo opposes BDS. He went to Israel and Palestine last summer to congratulate Israel on its onslaught on Gaza.

But he’s on the Indiana case like a duck on a junebug. Yesterday he issued an executive order barring state travel to Indiana unless it was necessary as a matter of public safety or health. He ordered

• All agencies, departments, boards, authorities and commissions to review all requests for state funded or state sponsored travel to the state of Indiana so long as there is law in effect there that creates the grounds for discrimination against LGBT citizens.

• To bar any such publically funded or publically sponsored travel to such location, unless such travel is necessary for the enforcement of New York State law, to meet prior contractual obligations, or for the protection of public health, welfare, and safety;

• New York State’s ban on publically funded travel shall take effect immediately and shall continue while such law remains in effect.

The University of Buffalo promptly committed itself to the travel ban– without any talk about academic freedom for Indiana scholars, the issue that American liberal academics cite when they object to BDS:

From: Satish K. Tripathi, President [to provost and deans]

…The University at Buffalo is committed to fostering an academic community characterized by the respectful, fair, and equitable treatment of all its members, and strongly shares the Governor’s conviction that “the exercise of religious freedom should not be a justification for discrimination based upon sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, or other protected classes.”

Therefore, in accordance with Executive Order #144, and in solidarity with its stated intent to “promote fairness, protect the welfare of the citizens of the state of New York, and combat discrimination,” unless specifically exempted by Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order #144, University at Buffalo employees and students are prohibited from conducting state-funded or state-sponsored travel to the state of Indiana while this ban remains in effect…

Back to Israel and Palestine. Over the weekend the Virginia Bar association canceled a legal seminar trip to Jerusalem in November because “certain” members had objected to “unacceptable discriminatory policies and practices” at Israeli borders. And all hell has broken loose. Forbes has tried to shame the bar. The speaker of the Virginia House has urged the bar to reverse the decision:

The State Bar’s decision to cancel this upcoming trip is inconsistent with the policy of the Commonwealth and sends the wrong signal about our relationship with Israel.

Today a Washington Post columnist, David Bernstein, calls on bar officials to apologize for the decision. In doing so, he justifies racist discrimination against Arabs and Muslims by Israel, in the pages of the Washington Post:

There are obvious reasons why people of Arab, Middle Eastern or Muslim origin may be more likely to arouse suspicion of Israeli security personnel: they are more likely to have traveled to visit relatives in countries hostile to Israel; they are more likely have names similar or identical to names on Israeli terror watchlists; having absorbed propaganda from the Arab media about baby-eating Israeli Jews, they may be more nervous about going through Israeli security, and nervousness is one sign “profilers” look for in determining whom to question.

Imagine rationalizing the Indiana restrictions with similar stereotypical smears. Gays get nervous…

The VA Bar has stood by its decision to bar the travel. One reason: “An [Israeli] embassy official expressed a desire to facilitate the trip but acknowledged that security protocols are strict and could lead to exclusion or restriction of some VSB [Virginia State Bar] members.” Not cool.

It’s also worth pointing out (as Phan Nguyen notes) that the current threats to boycott Indiana cite the Colorado boycott of 1992, after Colorado voters passed an initiative to deprive gays of protected anti-discriminatory status. That boycott garnered so much mainstream legitimacy– hurting Aspen, Vail, Telluride and Steamboat in the process– that even the New York Times Editorial Board supported it in a piece called “The Case for the Colorado Boycott.” The final sentence in that editorial was:

“The boycott is a legitimate weapon in a democratic society and, historically, one of the most effective.”

 Thanks to Adam Horowitz.