BREAKING: 398 House members just voted for H.Res.246 in a powerful statement opposing the global BDS campaign and its deliberate discrimination of Israel. This overwhelming vote is representative of the breadth, depth and diversity of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress.
The AIPAC servitors in Congress believe the ability to confront Israel’s apartheid must be criminalized, even at the expense of the Constitution they supposedly swore an oath to uphold (and this has been a joke for some time).
More than 250 million Americans, some 78 percent of the population, live in states with anti-boycott laws or policies.
Three members of Congress are fighting back to defend the First Amendment. https://www.aclu.org/blog/right-boycott-under-attack-some-members-congress-are-pushing-back …
But never mind the Constitution, which is close to being a dead letter. As a free human, you have a natural right to oppose and refuse to do business with any individual or entity you so please, and also encourage others to do likewise, so long as that opposition is not violent or coercive.
Read the entire article
Showing posts with label Boycott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boycott. Show all posts
Friday, July 26, 2019
Thursday, December 20, 2018
The Constitutional Right to Boycott Israel
A report by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Palestine Legal discussed “The Palestine Exception to Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US.”
It covers “widespread and growing suppression of Palestinian human rights advocacy in the United States” – notably on college campuses against students and teachers.
What’s going on has chilling implications for constitutionally guaranteed speech, media and academic freedoms, including an assault on “higher education to help develop critical thinking,” CCR and Palestine Legal explained.
Their report documents “event cancellations, baseless legal complaints, administrative disciplinary actions, firings, and false and inflammatory accusations of terrorism and antisemitism – that Israel advocacy organizations, universities, government actors, and other institutions have used against activists.”
It includes testimonies of supporters of Palestinian rights, targeted for their activism – in deference to Israel and its US lobby.
Read the entire article
It covers “widespread and growing suppression of Palestinian human rights advocacy in the United States” – notably on college campuses against students and teachers.
What’s going on has chilling implications for constitutionally guaranteed speech, media and academic freedoms, including an assault on “higher education to help develop critical thinking,” CCR and Palestine Legal explained.
Their report documents “event cancellations, baseless legal complaints, administrative disciplinary actions, firings, and false and inflammatory accusations of terrorism and antisemitism – that Israel advocacy organizations, universities, government actors, and other institutions have used against activists.”
It includes testimonies of supporters of Palestinian rights, targeted for their activism – in deference to Israel and its US lobby.
Read the entire article
Friday, February 2, 2018
Free Speech Victory: Federal Court Strikes Down a Law that Punishes Supporters of Israel Boycott
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that a Kansas law designed to punish people who boycott Israel is an unconstitutional denial of free speech. The ruling is a significant victory for free speech rights because the global campaign to criminalize, or otherwise legally outlaw, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has been spreading rapidly in numerous political and academic centers in the U.S. This judicial decision definitively declares those efforts — when they manifest in the U.S. — to be a direct infringement of basic First Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
The invalidated law, enacted last year by the Kansas legislature, requires all state contractors — as a prerequisite to receiving any paid work from the state — “to certify that they are not engaged in a boycott of Israel.” The month before the law was implemented, Esther Koontz, a Mennonite who works as a curriculum teacher for the Kansas public school system, decided that she would boycott goods made in Israel, motivated in part by a film she had seen detailing the abuse of Palestinians by the occupying Israeli government, and in part by a resolution enacted by the national Mennonite Church. The resolution acknowledged “the cry for justice of Palestinians, especially those living under oppressive military occupation for fifty years”; vowed to “oppose military occupation and seek a just peace in Israel and Palestine”; and urged “individuals and congregations to avoid the purchase of products associated with acts of violence or policies of military occupation, including items produced in [Israeli] settlements.”
A month after this law became effective, Koontz, having just completed a training program to teach new courses, was offered a position at a new Kansas school. But, as the court recounts, “the program director asked Ms. Koontz to sign a certification confirming that she was not participating in a boycott of Israel, as the Kansas Law requires.” Koontz ultimately replied that she was unable and unwilling to sign such an oath because she is, in fact, participating in a boycott of Israel. As a result, she was told that no contract could be signed with her.
In response to being denied this job due to her political views, Koontz retained the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the commissioner of education, asking a federal court to enjoin enforcement of the law on the grounds that denying Koontz a job due to her boycotting of Israel violates her First Amendment rights. The court on Thursday agreed and preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the law.
Read the entire article
The invalidated law, enacted last year by the Kansas legislature, requires all state contractors — as a prerequisite to receiving any paid work from the state — “to certify that they are not engaged in a boycott of Israel.” The month before the law was implemented, Esther Koontz, a Mennonite who works as a curriculum teacher for the Kansas public school system, decided that she would boycott goods made in Israel, motivated in part by a film she had seen detailing the abuse of Palestinians by the occupying Israeli government, and in part by a resolution enacted by the national Mennonite Church. The resolution acknowledged “the cry for justice of Palestinians, especially those living under oppressive military occupation for fifty years”; vowed to “oppose military occupation and seek a just peace in Israel and Palestine”; and urged “individuals and congregations to avoid the purchase of products associated with acts of violence or policies of military occupation, including items produced in [Israeli] settlements.”
A month after this law became effective, Koontz, having just completed a training program to teach new courses, was offered a position at a new Kansas school. But, as the court recounts, “the program director asked Ms. Koontz to sign a certification confirming that she was not participating in a boycott of Israel, as the Kansas Law requires.” Koontz ultimately replied that she was unable and unwilling to sign such an oath because she is, in fact, participating in a boycott of Israel. As a result, she was told that no contract could be signed with her.
In response to being denied this job due to her political views, Koontz retained the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the commissioner of education, asking a federal court to enjoin enforcement of the law on the grounds that denying Koontz a job due to her boycotting of Israel violates her First Amendment rights. The court on Thursday agreed and preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the law.
Read the entire article
Thursday, March 17, 2016
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