moon
Satire for Sanity
Israel boycott bans are threatening our First Amendment rights
Democrats cannot afford to look the other way as efforts to shield Israel from accountability erode our fundamental rights.
while we will likely see partisan deadlock on most issues until the next election cycle, there will be one area of bipartisan activity that will continue unabated: the united effort to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes and human rights violations against the Palestinian people.
In particular, legislators and interest groups on both sides of the political spectrum have been stepping up their efforts to target those using their First Amendment rights to condemn the Israeli military occupation or demand that the Israeli regime adheres to international law.
In recent years, dozens of states adopted legislation designed to punish individuals and companies that refuse to do business in occupied Palestine or with those who profit from Israel’s military occupation. For example, in 2017, the state of Texas only provided hurricane disaster relief funds to those who promised they would not boycott Israel. In 2018, Bahia Amawi, a child speech pathologist in Texas, was fired for refusing to make a similar pledge. That year, the Arkansas Times, a local newspaper based in Little Rock, sued the state of Arkansas after a public university withdrew an advertising contract. Why? Because the newspaper did not renounce its constitutionally protected right to boycott Israel.
While federal courts have struck down most of these laws for blatantly violating the First Amendment, the case of the Arkansas Times was different. The Eighth Circuit Court ruled against the Arkansas Times in July 2022, stripping the newspaper of its right to boycott Israel. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court announced its decision not to review, at least for now, the constitutionality of Arkansas’ anti-boycott law.
The issue, however, is far from over. The anti-boycott laws springing up in different jurisdictions across the US will be reviewed by the Supreme Court sooner or later, and that review will have far-reaching implications for all of us, including those who do not support boycotts of Israel. Indeed, if we permit criticism of Israel to be an exception to our First Amendment rights, many more exceptions will follow. Already, several states have introduced “copycat” anti-boycott laws that aim to criminalise boycotts of the fossil fuel and firearms industries.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/...t-bans-are-a-threat-to-first-amendment-rights
How would you have felt about being banned from boycotting Mussolini's fascists ?
Would you have thought that those banning you had more than a whiff of fascism about them ?
Yeah.