How are Israel boycott bans even enforced? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 year ago by CthulhusIntern@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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Shopping at Target "Do I want a Sodastream? ...Nah, I don't need one."

SWAT Team runs over "YOU WILL BUY THE SODASTREAM OR WE WILL SHOOT! PUT THE SODASTREAM IN YOUR CART AND KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"

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[-] star_wraith@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago

This is my understanding:

If an individual wants to boycott Israel or promote boycotting Israel, they can. The anti-BDS laws don’t apply.

If you run a business or an org and you want to boycott Israel, you can do that too.

Where the anti-BDS laws come in, is if your business or org is engaging in a boycott of Israel, then the government that has passed anti-BDS laws cannot work with you, buy your products, etc. Most businesses engage with the government in some way, so they don’t bother (not that most businesses would, anyway). Kinda how the Cuban blockade works - you can trade with Cuba, but if you do you can’t trade with the US and virtually no one is gonna pick Cuba over the US.

Also, if your state passes a law that bans BDS, and say your city or county council wants to boycott Israeli products, that would be against the law.

To my knowledge no one - even a government employee - can be jailed for personally boycotting Israel or advocating for a boycott.

[-] YearOfTheCommieDesktop@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

yeah, this is mostly right. however there have been cases where these laws were applied to an individual who was supposed to, say, receive reimbursement or speaking fees from a public university. And under the legal argument most of these laws are based on/making, they assert that the boycott itself is not speech (though speech advocating for a boycott is), and therefore not constitutionally protected, so future iterations of these laws could conceivably make it illegal to boycott israel as an individual.

also iirc some cases have happened where state employees were required to sign a loyalty pledge, but maybe they were technically contractors