TABLET MAG
by Eugene Kontorovich
July 13, 2015

Abe Foxman says that banning the use of public money to support companies that boycott Israel is unconstitutional and illegal. Is he right?

In the latest act of a decades-long fight against discriminatory boycotts of Israel, two states have passed, and several are considering, legislation that protects their taxpayers from inadvertently underwriting such boycotts. Legislation recently passed by Congress denounced “politically motivated” boycotts of Israel…..In the 1970s, the U.S. passed laws that prohibited compliance with boycotts of Israel promoted by the Arab League, because the Arab states happened to be the principal agent behind the campaign of economic warfare against the Jewish state. Now, parallel to changes in the character of actual warfare, the economic war is spearheaded by a network of non-state organizations with background state support. Not surprisingly, the U.S. is updating its anti-boycott laws to reflect the new face of the old threat. Just as the old laws were entirely constitutional, their milder 21st-century descendants are, too. READ MORE