The Shift: House Republicans pull anti-BDS bill from schedule

This week, House Republicans pulled an anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) bill from the Congressional calendar.

The AIPAC-backed IGO Anti-Boycott Act is an amendment to the Anti-Boycott Act of 2018. The legislation has 24 cosponsors and was introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ).

Once the vote was announced, tweets and memes claimed that the bill would allow the government to throw people in jail for up to 20 years or fine them up to $1 million if they boycotted Israel.

In actuality, that framework is already imposed by the 2018 bill. This new modification (which doesn’t actually mention Israel directly) is a clear attack on the United Nations and other international organizations that attempt to assist Palestinians.

Here’s the full text:

This bill expands an existing anti-boycott law to include certain boycotts imposed by international governmental organizations (IGOs).

Current law prohibits various actions by U.S. persons (individuals or entities) in relation to boycotts imposed by foreign governments on a country which is friendly to the United States and that is not itself the object of a U.S. boycott. This bill applies those prohibitions to similar boycotts imposed by IGOs.

Prohibited actions include (1) refusing to do business with companies organized under the laws of the boycotted country, if the refusal is pursuant to an agreement with or request from the country or IGO imposing the boycott; (2) refusing to employ any U.S. person on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin; and (3) furnishing information about whether someone is associated with charitable or fraternal organizations that support the boycotted country.

The bill also requires the President to annually submit to Congress and make available to the public a report describing these boycotts and listing the foreign countries and international organizations involved in fostering or imposing them.

Once news of the vote got out, the amendment was heavily criticized and not just by pro-Palestine accounts on the Left. A number of right-wing politicians and pundits criticized the move, forcing Lawler to defend the bill to members of his own party online.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said he wouldn’t vote for the amendment.

“Antisemitism is bad and should be categorically rejected,” tweeted former House member Matt Gaetz. “Not every idea cooked up to respond to Antisemitism is a good one. There’s a real danger in passing bills like this.”

Right-wing media personality Charlie Kirk said that the bill would “only create more antisemitism, and play into growing narratives that Israel is running the U.S. government.”

“This bill should not pass,” he added. “Any Republican that votes for this bill will expose themselves. We will be watching very closely.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also said she would vote against the amendment.

“It is my job to defend American’s rights to buy or boycott whomever they choose without the government harshly fining them or imprisoning them,” she tweeted.

It’s easy to chalk this stuff up as an extension of the “America First” policy pushed by Trump supporters, but the right hasn’t exactly been consistent on such issues.

Take Marjorie Taylor Greene as an example.

Back in 2021, Greene criticized lawmakers like Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for backing the boycott of Israel. “They support BDS, which hurts Israel’s economy,” said Greene. “They want to boycott their goods. That’s what our United States members of Congress support, hurting Israel’s economy. They support Hamas, bombing Israel.”

On Twitter, journalist David Grossman says it’s hard to interpret Greene’s about-face an ideological move. Rather, she is “trying to jump off a sinking ship getting closer and closer to looking like a ‘forever war.'”

We have some recent polling that might support this theory. Last month, Pew released a survey showing how support for Israel had declined in recent years.

37% of Republicans said they hold an unfavorable view of Israel. In 2022, that number was just 27%. But look among younger Republicans—that’s where the jump has occurred. In 2022, 35% of Republicans under the age of 50 had an unfavorable view of Israel. That has jumped to 50%.

Reason’s Matthew Petti notes that Lawler was touting his bill as a defense of Israel earlier this year, but has dropped any mention of the country from his recent tweets, claiming the legislation seeks “neutrality in trade disputes” and insisting that it doesn’t infringe on people’s personal choices.

Sludge calls the bill’s removal a “rare setback” for AIPAC, and a cursory look at pro-Israel websites reveals a deepening frustration over the development.

Take a look at this comically passive-aggressive sentence from a report on the issue from Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod: “The fallout is just one recent example of how actors on the political fringes have mobilized to stymie pro-Israel legislation and bills to combat antisemitism that otherwise enjoy bipartisan support — often by misrepresenting their aims and impacts — and have ammassed sufficient influence to upend that bipartisan consensus and scuttle the legislative process.”

This is not the only pro-Israel bill to get postponed recently.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions delayed a vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act last month. The bill would codify the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism into law.

The effort seemingly fell apart during a hearing on the bill. It was opposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and Democrats introduced dozens of amendments to the legislation. One criticized Trump’s crackdown on students, another asserted that criticism of Israel is not antisemitism.

Here’s what Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) President Lara Friedman told me about the bill back in February:

It’s worth noting some of the reasons it stalled. After it passed in the House, there was a sudden outpouring of opposition from the right wing. Up until that point it had been groups like the ACLU and Palestine activists sounding the alarm about the bill, but after it passed the House you saw pro-Israel voices like Batya Ungar-Sargon and Bill Ackman attack it on First Amendment grounds….

So you had this outpouring from the right. It was libertarians. It was free speech absolutists on the right. A big chunk of the right said this is just a form of stealth DEI. You’re creating a category that somehow has a free speech exemption so their feelings aren’t hurt…

It’s hard to believe either of these bills is going anywhere, and they’re certainly not the only efforts to stifle free speech making their way around Congress.

However, the fact this hasn’t been smooth sailing for AIPAC is notable and worth paying attention to going forward.

New data on Palestine-related employment discrimination

The campus is certainly not the only place where pro-Palestine speech is actively stifled. It also happens in the workplace and, thanks to a new report from CAIR, we have some statistics on the situation.

According to Terminated: Employment Discrimination at the Core of Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian Racism, the group received 1,329 complaints of employment discrimination in 2024. That’s more than they received in education-related concerns.

The report notes that many companies publicly embraced the Black Lives Matter movement and maintained a public image devoted to social justice, before cracking down on supporters of Palestine.

It notes two patters in this regard:

1.) “Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab employees have been encouraged to share their cultural and religious identity at work only to the extent that it does not threaten to express a criticism of the Israeli government, even as it continues to engage in a campaign of destruction of Palestinian and Muslim cultural and religious heritage in Gaza.”

2. “Workplaces that had in the recent past encouraged all employees to share support for political and social movements have punished even the slightest expressions of sympathy with Palestinian civilians from Muslim, Arab, and other employees.”

“For years, workplaces have been encouraging their employees to be expressive about their identities at work, as well as causes important to them,” said CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor in a statement. “But now that it’s Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim employees displaying signs of their culture, and other employees expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people, it’s enough to get you disciplined and even terminated. What we’re seeing is nothing short of a double standard.”

One of the stories CAIR cites is that of Hossam Nasr and Abdo Mohamed, two Microsoft employees who were fired after holding a vigil for Gaza outside of the company headquarters.

I recently spoke with both of them, along with Vaniya Agrawal, who was fired by for disrupting Microsoft’s 50th-anniversary event in protest of the company’s connection to Israeli apartheid.

The fired workers spoke about Microsoft’s image of an ethical company committed to human rights.

“Microsoft has built this image of being the good tech company, the ethical champion of human rights, and so on,” Nasr told me. “And a lot Microsoft’s work is building this image that it’s more moral than other tech companies. It’s become clear that through their partnerships with the Israeli military, through through their complicity in Israel’s apartheid and genocide regime, that is that image is no longer present among both workers and the public.”

Odds & Ends

💻 Meet the fired Microsoft employees challenging the company’s complicity in the Gaza genocide

🇮🇱 Report: Israel to use U.S. military contractors to deliver aid as it prepares to reoccupy Gaza

📺 There’s an under-reported Israel angle to the corporate effort to muzzle ’60 Minutes’

🇺🇸 Biden staffers admit what we all knew: White House lied about ceasefire efforts

🇸🇦 Responsible Statecraft: Lobby Horse: Trump’s ‘trillion dollar’ visit to Saudi Arabia

🎥 Electronic Intifada: Must-see doc “The Encampments” keeps focus on Gaza

🎵 Truthout: Kehlani Pride Month Concert Cancelled After Artist Says “I Am Anti-Genocide”

🗺️ Counterpunch: Palestine Has Exposed Every Lie the West Tells the World

📻 Pitchfork: Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa Release Statement After BDS Campaign Prompts Concert Cancellations

✝️ BBC: Popemobile to become health clinic for Gaza children

🏫 The Atlantic: Trump Finally Drops the Anti-Semitism Pretext

🗳️ Jewish Insider: Schakowsky retirement sets up Illinois Democratic primary battle over Mideast policy

⛔ The Guardian: Why are some trying to silence our film on Columbia’s Gaza protests?

💬 The Real News: The ‘free speech’ org silent as Trump disappears dissenters over Gaza

👨‍💼 Responsible Statecraft: ADL takes on shareholders questioning Israel arms sales

⚖️ Common Dreams: Michigan AG Drops Charges Against Pro-Palestinian Campus Protesters

🇮🇷 The Guardian: Trump plans to announce US will refer to Arabian Gulf rather than Persian Gulf

📒 Axios: Trump administration opens antisemitism probe into UW after protest unrest