> The spread of anti-BDS laws in U.S. states is largely due to the lobbying of the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), an umbrella group of Israel lobbies headquartered in Jerusalem that has received funding from the Israeli government
BDS != The only way to criticize Israel. Lobbing against BDS has a pretty simple cause...
From the same page:
> ... A dozen local and national parliaments have passed symbolic resolutions condemning BDS. Most of these condemnations have alleged that BDS is anti-Semitic.
Boycotting doesn't seem to me to be a form of speech. It's just people choosing where to spend their money. Divestment is similar - people choose what to invest in and what not to invest in.
Campaigning for BDS does seem to be speech, and regrettably institutions seem to have gathered around the view that it's antisemitic speech.
anti-BDS regulations, implemented through either legislation or a governor’s order, require businesses contracting with the state to affirm that they are not participating in a boycott of Israel. I don't know of any laws that have attempted to silence individual citizens or direct their ability to protest as individuals (not businesses who also want government contracts).
Anti-BDS "laws" are the most idiotic culture-war bullshit the American political system has come up with in the past five years. Secondary boycotts imposed by contract terms were illegal decades ago, and so all these new "laws" are entirely symbolic. It's the worst kind of political red meat, too, because both sides take the bait as if something was actually happening.
I agree. I think the argument that there is some infringement on constitutionally protected speech is unfounded. The issues to argue over (and context) is complicated enough as it is.
"Boycott Israel because of their treatment of Palestinians." A perfectly acceptable political statement.
"Boycott Israel because they are a bunch of greedy Jews." An obviously anti-Semitic statement.
The problem is that people who believe the latter will often say the former. This causes opponents of the latter to doubt the authenticity of people who say the former. Some people who oppose the former might also accuse people of the latter to discredit them. It becomes can quickly become confusing, but it should be clear that a boycott can clearly have both appropriate and inappropriate motivations.
>Boycott Israel because they are a bunch of greedy Jews.
There's no evidence of any BDS leaders saying this.
On the other hand, there's a bundle of evidence of vehement racism in the highest levels of the Israeli government (calls for "racial purity", collective punishment against arabs, "all arabs grow up to be terrorists", etc).
The fact that apartheid south africa was closely allied with israel, shared a nuclear project and was taken down by a BDS movement is, of course, not a coincidence.
The veneer of anti-racism has seemingly been co-opted to support a white european colonialist project behind an apartheid state
that purports to represent a race (again, like apartheid South Africa).
>it should be clear that a boycott can clearly have both appropriate and inappropriate motivations.
It should be clear that evidence-wise, being anti boycott most likely indicates at the very least stark naiveté and perhaps darker, more racist motives.
Equally, dismissing various criticisms (including boycotts) about the illegal military occupation of Palestine as "anti-semitic" is exactly what groups as JIDF (defunct), ACT.IL and many others are experts at doing.
Yes, I specifically pointed that out when I said "Some people who oppose the former might also accuse people of the latter to discredit them." However that neither exonerates the people who are doing it for truly anti-Semitic reasons or proves that those people don't exist.
Yet they all tend to be grouped into that category when a phrase like "anti-semitic" is used. If jews criticize Israel, they're labelled as self-hating. Whitewashing in the name of holocaust victims is doing a disservice, to say the least, IMHO. Religious zealots on one side are treated with white gloves, while any dissent or uproar (unrelated to Religion, even) on the other side is seen as justification to take any action in the name of security.
When the descendants of victims from places like the Warsaw Ghetto justify and defend their operations of the modern-day ghetto in Gaza...
When you compare Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, you're doing violence to history. The Warsaw Ghetto did not have elections to vote in a terrorist group. It was not offered its own nation-state. It didn't receive billions in foreign aid to build bombs. It did not have a charter, nor was the annihilation of German civilians in its charter. Moreover, it existed as a way to round people up in order to exterminate them. That is not the "purpose" of Gaza. Gaza should by now be a successful part of a successful Palestinian state, and the reason it is not has a lot to do with Hamas.
In any case, where you have actual genocide - e.g. the systematic murder of a Muslim minority in China - no one is calling for boycotts or comparing it to the Holocaust, or even labeling it a genocide. Tesla opens a dealership in Xinjiang and the same exact people who want to boycott Israel go out and buy Teslas. Teslas they can charge up at the casinos on Indian reservations between LA and Phoenix. Chatting on their iPhones made by slave labor in China.
But then, where you have nothing remotely similar to systematic murder, as in the Palestinian territories, people call it "genocide" and call for a boycott. Ain't that funny?
You just mentioned a number of the double standards that exist netween the US and countries with immoral policies. There were uprisings in the ghettos. Granted, they didn't have enough time to form a democratically elected government. I am pointing out the irony of using anything similar as the Germans against a people who live in the most densely-populated, walled off land on earth...to say the least. Prolonging that with impunity and pride will certainly not make things better for anyone. You are casting aspersions against what I said, with no reason.
Yes. There was an uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. You know what happened? The Germans leveled the ghetto and killed everyone. Because they wanted them dead. There was an uprising in Xinjiang. Know what happened? China put millions of people into forced labor camps. Because they want them dead.
There was an uprising in Gaza. Guess what happened. Israel withdrew its own settlers unilaterally at gunpoint and handed over the territory, leaving greenhouses which were then leveled by Hamas.
Israel is also an extremely small, densely populated place surrounded by people who want to kill it.
To respond more directly, I didn't mention any double standards between the US and countries with immoral policies. I'm not even sure what that means; it's a nonsensical statement, as double standards don't exist "between" countries, they only exist in terms of criticism. Specifically, they only exist where criticism is biased.
To your second point, you say the Warsaw Ghetto wasn't able to hold elections to form a democratic government because they "didn't have enough time"? It had absolutely nothing to do with not having enough time. The Ghetto was a transit point for people to be gassed, nothing more. Imagine if they were encouraged to form a democratically elected government and hold elections, like Gaza, and if those elections were backed and monitored by international human rights organizations, like Gaza's elections were. And imagine if what they voted in was a theocratic dictatorship who proudly proclaimed that their winning would signal the final democratic election, ever.
Finally, you might have misunderstood what I said. The Germans in my scenario are the Israelis - that is what the BDS people think. They think the Israelis are Germans, and the Palestinians are Jews. The only irony in the situation is that the people who think this are Germans and/or other Europeans who did not give a flying fuck about the Holocaust when it was happening, and now suddenly are gripped by conscience when one is not happening - insofar as they can still be antisemitic in polite company.
Again, not disputing the history. Nevertheless, drawing a comparison to showcase the irony. Especially as the situation in Gaza and West Bank has been ongoing across multiple generations. Forgive the simplistic, cheeky remarks about not having enough time for elections. That's meant, once again, to draw attention to the length of time that Palestinians have endured this onslaught.
Go back to the beginning of Israel, check the terrorist activities of jewish groups. Ongoing settlements, landgrab, indiscriminate retaliatory measures--military or otherwise systemic in nature. Yet time and time again, no measure of accountability for a regional superpower.
Hamas was declared a terrorist organization by the EU in 2001, five years before they won elections in Gaza.
Palestine declared statehood in 1988 when Jordan renounced the West Bank. In 1993, the Oslo Accords would have granted statehood to Gaza and the West Bank. This was rejected by the PA leadership under Arafat because it would have foreclosed the possibility of a return to land within Israel proper, and they didn't have the political strength to make that palatable when most of their power rested on raising the street in anger. The fact remains that a free Palestinian state was offered to the PA, which would have included all of Gaza and most of the West Bank.
Should all opinions based on bad reasons be banned? Should people be compelled to explain their beliefs? Who decides if these opinions are good or illegal?
I don't believe fairly arbitrating expression based on beliefs is feasible, and I do believe it is actively harmful
Everyone is free to their own opinions. Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations. We already apply this to other forms of restriction on speech like defamation. Often defamation will require negligence to harm or intent to harm. Someone who is factually incorrect through an honest mistake generally isn't considered to have committed defamation. I don't know why we are okay trying to ascertain the motive behind speech in one instance and not another.
We do this with plenty of crimes. Murdering your spouse to collect their life insurance policy is punished harsher than murdering your spouse after you come home to find them having an affair. Motivations and intent matter.
That was one example of the law no acting based purely on result. If you want specifically an example of motivation what about killing in self defense? That is a motivation and not an intent. It can also be what decides guilt or innocence.
Defamation has a singular victim. Hate speech has a class of victim. Why should we allow one and not the other? Why can't we just scale up our defamation laws to also apply to groups of people?
I don't think you can justly punish people for an unquanitifiable "group harm" with regards to speech
You could easily use such a justification to ban anti-war speech (something that has been done before), or ban speech against whatever you favorite political view is
I'm not sure why we need to quantify the harm, but even if we did, how does that harm change? Why is it illegal to lie about an individual but it is legal to make that exact same lie about the group in which that individual belongs? Wouldn't you be equally harmed if I said "ForgotMyPwOops drinks the blood of babies" compared to if I said "Everyone of ForgotMyPwOops's ethnic group drinks the blood of babies"?
Also we could just limit this to protected groups as they are currently defined for discrimination. That solves your problem with anti-war speech or generic political views.
Should all speech be up for vote? Should all opinions that the majority disagree with be banned?
I believe weakening protections such as free speech, which are used by the vulnerable to call attention to their plights, is much more likely to hurt Jewish people than allowing ostensibly antisemitic expression to exist
At one point, in my home land (Aotearoa) it was considered perfectly reasonable by the majority to bring teams of white South Africans into the country to play games. They were whit South Africans because they would not allow black South Africans in their teams.
The minority here fought long and hard to stop it, lost the battle (the team came and played their games against our local teams) but now are recognised as heros.
No. It is not the majority who decides what is right and wrong.
Nope, if majority believe A, doesn't make A true. It just means majority believe A.
Public opinion is very malleable.
Hence the existence of marketing.
I do, but, If it also happened in Germany and France which frequently criticize Israel, seems like it anti-BDS has nothing to do with silencing criticizing Israel... because they haven't stopped since.
Israel is pretty tolerant of meek criticism and regular old antisemitism (e.g. like that employed by their allies Orban and evangelicals/southern baptists).
BDS constitutes much more of an existential threat to the state - they're keenly aware of its pivotal role in taking down apartheid South Africa.
That is, it's the explicit anti-racist grass roots and history of the movement that they object to so vehemently.
This is why they routunely throw out unfounded accusations of antisemitism & throw all the quite considerable lobbying firepower they have in key countries to try and stamp it out.
Support for killing BDS in other countries is as a result, indirectly, an accurate bellwether of which politicians will support/tolerate racism and which politicians can be bought (e.g. Trump - big ally, easily bought, largely pro-racism). There are some in most countries.
Another way to look at it is that it isn’t about stopping criticism if the criticism has no effect. Serious boycotts can be very effective, but “criticism” from politicians can be meaningless.
I would argue that as long as Israel is lobbying the US to make it illegal for Americans to boycott Israel it is in fact our business
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
> The spread of anti-BDS laws in U.S. states is largely due to the lobbying of the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), an umbrella group of Israel lobbies headquartered in Jerusalem that has received funding from the Israeli government