A federal judge in Kansas recently ruled that a state law making it illegal to support the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – or BDS – against Israel for its illegal occupation of the West Bank, was unconstitutional. Kansas is one of 24 states with anti-BDS laws on the books. The state laws take various forms, including prohibiting individuals who support BDS from being awarded state contracts and/or prohibiting states from investing in companies that boycott Israel. The BDS movement calls for dismantling the wall that cuts through Palestinian land, guaranteeing the right of Palestinians to return to their homes inside Israel and assuring that equal rights are accorded to all Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Federal legislation – known as the “Israel Anti-Boycott Act,” has been introduced in Congress with bi-partisan support and is a top legislative priority this year of AIPAC, the most powerful and most well-funded pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S. The proposed bill includes harsh criminal sanctions for U.S. persons who comply with or support boycotts of Israel in response to calls by the U.N., the E.U. or other international governmental organizations.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Dima Khalidi, founder and director of Palestine Legal. The group based in Chicago and founded in 2012 works to protect the constitutional rights of those advocating for Palestinian freedom. Here, Khalidi explains the federal judge’s ruling upholding U.S. citizens’ right to engage in protest and boycotts targeting Israel’s illegal occupation and its significance.
DIMA KHALIDI: The first challenge of one of these anti-boycott laws was brought in federal court against a Kansas law, so it was a federal district court in Kansas. The ACLU brought the lawsuit on behalf of a Mennonite schoolteacher who was involved in a teacher training program and had to contract with the state to be paid by the state to train other teachers, basically.
And because of Kansas’s new – as of 2017 – anti-boycott law, which prohibits contractors with the state from boycotting Israel, she was required to sign a certification that she didn’t boycott Israel in order to be involved with this teacher training program. And because her church, and she herself, decided to boycott certain Israeli companies and other companies that are complicit in Israel’s occupation, she refused to sign the certification and she is not able to be involved in this teacher training program as a result.
So it’s clear in this case that there is a political litmus test being applied for those who want to contract with the state, to be paid by the state, for whatever services they might be providing, and that is completely constitutionally unacceptable. The math teacher tried to get a preliminary injunction to stop the state from enforcing this law while this litigation proceeds, and the judge granted that preliminary injunction, so the state is now blocked from enforcing this law as long as this lawsuit is ongoing.
So, the decision was really important in making very clear that this law appears unconstitutional as a violation of First Amendment rights. The judge confirmed what we have been saying since we saw the first anti-boycott law introduced in 2014 that boycotts for Palestinian rights are the same as the boycotts that precipitated the Supreme Court case, NAACP v Claybourn, in 1982, and those were boycotts against white businesses in the South protesting segregation and racism in the South during the Civil Rights era.
So this decision is a really important precedent for other challenges that will surely come up against other anti-boycott laws and to prevent other anti-boycott laws from being enacted, hopefully, when legislators see the judge has ruled this way. The ACLU also brought a lawsuit against a very similar law in Arizona and that ruling is pending as well.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Dima Khalidi, Israel itself has just created a blacklist of 20 international organizations, including Code Pink and Jewish Voice for Peace, that can no longer enter Israel and therefore can’t get into the West Bank, due to their support for BDS. What impact do you think this will have on efforts to squelch support for BDS?
DIMA KHALIDI: Yes, this is clearly one of the many strategies that Israel is using to intimidate, to bully people who are speaking out for Palestinian rights. They are trying to send a message that if you take this kind of position, not only will you not be allowed into this country whatever your background is, but you will also be pursued in other ways.
As I said, Palestine Legal, my organization, has been documenting for five years the array of ways that Israel and Israel advocacy groups in the U.S. are targeting activists and regular people who are speaking out publicly for Palestinian rights. The ways range from lawsuits, to this legislative strategy, to defamation campaigns against individuals. They are very targeted against individual students, professors, other activists. Profiles of people on the Internet, on anonymous websites, claiming they are terrorists or anti-Semitic for their views.
We’re seeing universities being pressured very hard by Israel advocacy groups to punish student activists who are protesting, delivering divestment resolutions, etc. The list goes on and on. And all of these methods of suppression are aimed at silencing people who believe in Palestinian human rights, who want to see accountability for Israel’s decades of subjugation of Palestinians and dispossession of Palestinians.
For more information visit Palestine Legal at palestinelegal.org, BDS Movement at bdsmovement.net, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights atuscpr.org and Jewish Voice For Peace at jvp.org.
