‘Sex and the City’ Star Under Attack for Supporting BDS

(MEMO) — A leading pro-Israel activist is attempting to derail an American actor’s bid to become the governor of New York over her support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. Cynthia Nixon, one of the stars of the “Sex and the City” television series and movies, announced on Monday that she is planning to […]

Stephen Hawking Stood up for Palestinians, Supported Boycott of Israel

(MEE) — Tributes were being paid on Wednesday to renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking – not only remembering him for the brilliance of his scientific mind but as an impassioned campaigner who lent his unique voice to causes including Palestinians’ right of resistance and to call for an end to the war in Syria. Hawking, who died […]

Zionist Group Awards Trump its Highest Honor: ‘No President Has Done More’ to Promote Zionism

This week president Trump received the Friends of Zion Award at the White House, labeling him as the most Zionist-friendly president in US history.

Texas City Demands Hurricane Harvey Victims Support Israel to Get Relief

(ANTIMEDIA) Dickinson, TX — Government suppression of free speech can take many forms. It’s not always censorship in the media or storm troopers in the streets bashing in the heads of protesters. For proof of this, one need look no further than Dickinson, Texas.

The small coastal town southeast of Houston took some of the worst Hurricane Harvey had to offer, with almost 7,400 homes damaged — many of them beyond repair. In response, the city council decided to set up a relief fund. People can donate to the city, and then a committee distributes the money to residents on a case-by-case basis.

As it clearly states in published minutes of the October 10 meeting of the Dickinson city council — the meeting where the program was discussed — taxpayer funding is not an issue because “no City dollars are being spent or received.” Individuals donate to the city, and the city allots that money to hurricane victims.

The city government appears to be acting as nothing more than a go-between, a means by which to connect people who need help with people willing to give it. But apparently, due to a recent law passed in Texas, the city is requiring people to make a pledge before they can receive any aid — one that cuts straight to the heart of free speech.

Right in the grant application, The Dickinson city council says residents cannot participate in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel. From that form:

“By executing this Agreement below, the Applicant verifies that the Applicant: (1) does not boycott Israel; and (2) will not boycott Israel during the term of this Agreement.”

If it sounds to you like a governmental body is requiring citizens to adhere to a particular political ideology before they can receive aid following a natural disaster, then your hearing is just fine. That’s what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also heard, and they felt obliged to say something about it. From a press release on Thursday:

“The city of Dickinson, Texas, is requiring applicants for Hurricane Harvey rebuilding funds to certify in writing that they will not take part in a boycott of Israel. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the city’s condition as a violation of free speech rights.”

Andre Segura, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, says the pledge reminds him of another time in America’s past:

“The First Amendment protects Americans’ right to boycott, and the government cannot condition hurricane relief or any other public benefit on a commitment to refrain from protected political expression. Dickinson’s requirement is an egregious violation of the First Amendment, reminiscent of McCarthy-era loyalty oaths requiring Americans to disavow membership in the Communist party and other forms of ‘subversive’ activity.”

As the ACLU points out in its press release, the Dickinson city council appears to be trying to enforce a Texas law passed in May that forbids government agencies from contracting with companies that boycott Israel. Text from Section 1 of House Bill 89 is almost identical to the provision in the Dickinson application form.

Dickinson’s city attorney told local KTRK the council was only following the law, though how exactly a law pertaining to companies contracting with state agencies applies to a city council handing out publicly donated money remains unclear. After all, as the council itself stated, “no City dollars are being spent or received.”

Local attorney Randy Kallinen says the ACLU is right on target.

“The application clearly requires people to have a certain political expression in order to get government benefits,” he told KTRK.

Kallinen also pointed out the obvious fact that people recovering from a natural disaster shouldn’t be required to pledge themselves to anything — let alone stipulations from a government body — other than putting their lives back together.

“Conditioning the much-needed relief from Harvey and other disasters upon adopting a certain political position is really something that is very distracting and slows down the process of rebuilding after Harvey,” he said.

Make no mistake, this is suppression of free speech. The Supreme Court ruled decades ago that people have a constitutionally protected right to boycott under the First Amendment. If restrictions similar to what is happening in Dickinson are allowed to stand, how long will it be before it becomes routine practice for governments — even local ones — try to tell you what you can and can’t think?

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US Lawmakers Seek to Throw Citizens in Prison for Decades if They Boycott Israel

One of the most fundamental rights in a nation logically consistent in crying freedom is the ability to boycott — a company, entity, church, or, in the case of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Movement against Israel, an entire nation — in protest of perceived transgressions to force through the wallet reforms which might not otherwise be accomplished.

Boycotts have indeed managed the seemingly impossible — SeaWorld, for example, ultimately had to shutter its orca captivity and breeding programs after the documentary, Blackfish, depicting horrendous, inhumane conditions, jerked heartstrings and ignited a backlash boycott, sending profits to the brink of an abyss.

Now, an alarmingly large group of politicians seek to strip American citizens of the right to this highly-effective method of protest — only when employed against the nation of Israel — with violators facing decades behind bars and stiff financial penalties.

New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand join 41 other members of Congress championing proposed legislation, which would make literal criminals of any Americans boycotting Israel — a brazen, if not explicit, attack on the BDS Movement, incidentally exploding in popularity worldwide as the belligerent nation continues its occupation of Palestinian lands.

Laying down the irrational, inflammatory gauntlet before the Senate this week, Schumer opined,

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“Anti-Zionism, unfortunately, continues to bubble up in many different forms. There is perhaps no greater example than the pernicious effort to delegitimize Israel through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. The BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign that I would say, in similar words to Mr. Macron, is a ‘reinvented form of anti-Semitism’ because it seeks to impose boycotts on Israel and not on any other nation.”

But critics of BDS should absolutely take heed — it is the First Amendment, not political views on Israel, at the crux of this dangerous legislation.

“Under the terms of the bill, a pair of U.S. laws that prohibit U.S. citizens from supporting a boycott request from a foreign government against an ally of the United States would be updated to specifically prohibit Americans from supporting international boycott efforts against Israel,” reports the Gothamist.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union — which immediately castigated the bill for further shredding the First Amendment — violators “would be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison.”

Despite clarifying it “takes no position for or against the effort to boycott Israel or any foreign country,” the ACLU implored, “The impacts of the legislation would be antithetical to free speech protections enshrined in the First Amendment and we urged members to oppose the legislation in the absence of significant revisions.”

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Worse, “it would punish individuals for no reason other than their political beliefs” — a footnote critics of BDS would do well to heed in determining their own position on the proposed legislation or others similar. To enact law punitive of one’s political adversaries is to invite they do the same — or, more accurately, proves to the State rights can be erased if packaged appropriately.

Ire over Israel’s enactment of what has consistently been deemed by academia and analysis a brutal apartheid — mirroring human rights abuses, atrocities, and blatant injustices of the South African regime responsible for the political detainment of Nelson Mandela — bolsters the numbers of BDS adherents in the U.S. and elsewhere.

“The state of Israel maintains a military occupation of territories that were assigned to Palestinians by international law. Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank are subjected to the discriminatory rule of a foreign army, while their Israeli neighbors enjoy the full rights of citizenship,” writes Eric Levitz for the Daily Intelligencer.

Make no mistake, this bill came to the fruition as Israel’s appalling persecution of Palestinians on their land has increasingly become the subject of protest by activists and advocates — who turn to the successful BDS campaign as a legitimate, nonviolent means to convey the message.

Pro-Israel fervor in the United States Congress usually bears the hallmarks of AIPAC — the infamous lobbying group — and this bill is no exception.

Indeed, as The Intercept noted, it appears an embarrassing number of the bill’s signatories did so simply for its AIPAC seal-of-approval (making felons of Americans choosing to protest a foreign nation through refusing business serves who, exactly?), rather than taking time to actually read the draft.

However this monstrosity gained congressional popularity, it must be loudly quashed and relegated to the dustbin of rights-crushing, ill-conceived ideas — which is the snuggest-fitting definition of the Anti-Boycott Israel bill.

“[T]he bill would punish businesses and individuals based solely on their point of view,” the outraged ACLU admonished. “Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment.”

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Such a penalty sadly also seems a typical evisceration of freedom in this corrupt and encroaching authoritarian State.