The Israel Anti-Boycott Act

This is an image of the flag of Israel, one of the largest power brokers in the middle east and one of the central players in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Imaged licensed under Creative Commons, some rights reserved. Image credit: Ron Almog. 

 

Upon searching the internet a few weeks ago I stumbled upon an article discussing a new Senate bill that, in my view, clearly violates the First Amendment.
The “Israel Anti-Boycott Act” seeks to make it a Felony with punishments including a fine (up to $250,000) or imprisonment (for up to 20 years) for any business OR individuals that participates in a boycott against Israeli businesses that operate in the West Bank.

Regardless of where you stand on the Israeli / Palestinian situation, I see this bill as a grave danger to freedom of speech, and it’s particularly troubling in a world where in which the term “corporate person-hood” is allowed to be a thing.

But let’s back up a second, and stress that the “Israel Anti-Boycott Act” is bigger than the Israel / Palestine situation, and let me also stress that NOT supporting this bill DOES NOT make you anti-Israel. Israel is going to be fine without this bill.

This bill does not just affect business owners; the text of the bill also includes “any U.S citizen” making the idea that it could pass a terrifying prospect.

I’ll put it simply: If this bill were to pass, (and it had 43 co-sponsors in the Senate, and purportedly 235 in the House of Representatives, making that possibility wholly reasonable) it would create a dangerous precedent of fining or imprisoning U.S citizens for political opinions.

After all, not supporting Israeli businesses in the occupied West Bank territories is a political decision, and one that you should 100% be able to make in the United States without fear of punishment or retribution by the United States government. In addition to banning the act of refusing to buy products from Israeli businesses in the occupied West Bank, it would also be illegal to make social media posts about your decision not to purchase these products, which is an even more cut-and-dry case of a violation of the First Amendment.

In fact, you as an individual should be able to decide not to support any business, anywhere, for any reason at all, and face no fear of punishment from the United States. This falls firmly within the realm of the First Amendment, and I’ll explain why.

In our current system, much to my dismay I might add, money is classified as speech. It is the reason for Supreme Court cases such as the now infamous “Citizens United vs. FEC” or “McCutcheon vs. FEC”. This doctrine of money as speech was first established in the language of the decision of “Buckey v. Valeo” back in 1976, where in which the Supreme Court ruled that banning campaign contributions limited free speech because money is political speech.

Imposing fines and jail times on making political statements using money (which is free speech, under the Supreme Court) is clearly in violation of the First Amendment, and is completely ridiculous.

You shouldn’t even be able to impose limits on corporations. Corporate personhood, the idea that corporations have some rights that individuals have has been a court doctrine since the late 1800s. I’m not in love with corporate personhood, particularly their ability to contribute to political campaigns, but they should have the right to post about, or boycott any business at any time.

If I don’t like that they boycott Israeli businesses, I’ll boycott them. That’s how our “Free Market System” is supposed to work.

For example, I won’t shop at Hobby Lobby because of their Supreme Court case. I won’t eat at Chick-Fil-A either. I 100% support Chick-Fil-A’s right to make the comments they did, and they should not face any actual government sanctions for them, but I boycott their business, and encourage others to do the same because I don’t agree with their message. I’m voting with my dollar. That’s how this works.

Thankfully, the ACLU has taken issue with this bill and is getting some results in getting Senators to reconsider the language of the bill. 29 Republicans and 13 Democrats are co-sponsors, making this a bi-partisan bill. If this bill manages to come into the spotlight again, I think it poses a grave danger to Freedom of Speech moving forward and needs to be reworked or completely removed. Bills like this have no place in a country that has the robust First Amendment protections like the United States.

Here are a few good articles if you want to learn more about this bill like I did.

Here’s an article from The Independent on the issue. Click here to read it.

Here’s an article to New York Magazine covering the issue. Click here to read it.