NY Gov.
Signs Pro-Israel exec. Order Punishing BDS Boycott
Movement
Andrew Cuomo pushed through discriminatory policy to
punish groups that boycott Israel for Palestinian
human rights
By Ben Norton
June 05, 2016
"Information
Clearing House"
- "Salon"
- New
York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a pro-Israel executive
order on Sunday that will punish people and groups
who support a boycott of Israel on behalf of
Palestinian human rights.
Legal
experts have described this long pending
anti-boycott policy as “21st-century
McCarthyism,” warning it would effectively
create a discriminatory “blacklist” of Palestinian
human rights advocates who endorse boycotts like
those organized in order to combat
U.S.-backed apartheid in South Africa.
Prominent
legal organizations including the Center for
Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild, the
New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal
say these politically motivated anti-boycott
policies constitute an unconstitutional attack on
the freedom of speech.
The New
York legislature has
unsuccessfully tried to push through anti-boycott
legislation for months, amid intense pressure by
pro-Israel lobby groups. Now it appears that Gov.
Cuomo has decided to instead circumvent the legal
process and implement the policy on his own.
“I am
signing an Executive Order that says very clearly we
are against the BDS movement,” Cuomo tweeted on
Sunday.
“If you
boycott Israel, New York will boycott you,” he
added.
“We made a
unity trip to Israel because they were under attack.
Today, Israel is under attack on a different level,”
he
tweeted before.
Cuomo then
announced that he would be marching in a pro-Israel
parade in New York City.
After
marching in the pro-Israel parade, Gov. Cuomo signed
the executive order “in solidarity with Israel.”
Cuomo
subsequently
retweeted Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron
Dermer, who applauded the New York governor for his
“strong stance against the BDS movement.”
BDS refers
to the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, an
international grassroots movement that
promotes nonviolent economic means to pressure
Israel to comply with international law and respect
Palestinian rights. It was called for by Palestinian
civil society in 2005.
The
executive order states that “the State of New York
will not permit its own investment activity to
further the BDS campaign in any way, shape or form,
whether directly or indirectly” and adds that “the
State of New York unequivocally rejects the BDS
campaign and stands firmly with Israel.”
It refers
to Israel as “a critical and invaluable ally of the
United States” and notes “the State of New York and
Israel enjoy a special historical relationship and
share a commonly forged cultural bond.”
“Unconstitutional” and
“McCarthyite”
In states
throughout the U.S., dozens of bills are pending
that would effectively create a blacklist of and
punish people and groups who support BDS.
“It’s
frightening to think there could be New York state
employees scouring the internet for pro-BDS Facebook
posts, tweets and news articles, and blacklisting
individuals based on their political viewpoints,”
Rahul Saksena, a staff attorney at non-profit
advocacy organization Palestine Legal,
told Salon in January.
“It’s 21st
century McCarthyism,” he added, noting government
policies that punish citizens who endorse boycotts
“are disturbing attempts to punish and chill
constitutionally protected speech.”
“The
government cannot punish individuals and entities
because of their speech and political views,”
Saksena said. “We believe that under a court’s
scrutiny, these bills would be found
unconstitutional.”
In May, an
anti-boycott bill pending in the New York senate was
pulled, after advocates from New York’s Freedom to
Boycott Coalition delivered a letter signed by more
than 100 organizations to the Albany offices of all
New York state assembly and senate members.
The
letter expressed strong opposition to pending
bills that would create “unconstitutional
blacklists,” adding, “State legislators pushing this
McCarthyite, anti-democratic and unconstitutional
legislation are out of touch with shifting opinion
among growing numbers of New Yorkers and Americans.”
In a
statement accompanying the letter, Melanie Trimble,
the director of the New York Civil Liberties Union
Capital Region chapter, stressed that government
policy “punishing New Yorkers for engaging in
political speech degrades our state’s values and
traditions and violates the Constitution.”
“New
Yorkers have a long history of bringing about
social change through politically-motivated,
collective actions like boycotts,” Trimble
added.
For
months, nevertheless, anti-boycott legislation
has remained in the New York legislature. Senate
Bill
S6378A, whose assembly counterpart
A9036 is also in committee, passed the
senate and is in committee in the assembly.
This bill,
which was sponsored by Republican Jack M. Martins
and has bipartisan co-sponsor support, would punish
those who boycott Israel but simultaneously allow a
boycott of U.S. enemies. It singles out Venezuela as
an example of a country Americans could boycott,
whose democratically elected socialist government
the U.S.
helped overthrow in 2002.
Earlier
this year, the National Lawyers Guild, the Center
for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal
issued a legal memorandum to New York state
legislators in response to the state senate’s vote
on S6378A. The legal organizations called the two
bills “McCarthyist,” noting they “harken back to the
McCarthy era when the state sought to deny the right
to earn a livelihood to those who express
controversial political views.”
Gov. Cuomo
is going around this long pending legislation and
pushing through a policy legal groups warn in
unconstitutional and discriminatory.
Right-wing
pro-Israel organizations like StandWithUs and
conservative Christian Zionist groups like
Christians United for Israel and Proclaiming Justice
to the Nations have
organized anti-BDS campaigns, and have called on
U.S. politicians to pass anti-BDS legislation.
Social
justice group Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP,
has strongly advocated against the anti-BDS
legislation. The group’s five New York state
chapters, along with the national
organization, signed the Freedom to Boycott
Coalition letter in May.
“New
York may blacklist me for working for
justice for Palestinians,” JVP Executive
Director Rebecca Vilkomerson
wrote in Salon in February. She defended
boycotts as “a protected form of political
speech” that have a “long history of being
an effective tool to pressure the powerful.”
Alana Krivo-Kaufman, JVP East Coast regional
organizer, noted that activists’ “work for
justice and equality for Palestinians
follows in the footsteps of other
progressive movements for racial and
economic justice that have used the tactics
of boycott and divestment to create
political change.”
The
National Lawyers Guild, the Center for
Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal
also spoke of this long historic precedent
in their memo.
“Those who support human rights boycotts —
like the boycott of Israel — see boycotts as
a peaceful means of putting an end to
injustice, just as supporters of the
Montgomery bus boycott in the 1950s, of the
California grape boycott in the 1960s, and
of the boycott of apartheid South Africa in
the 1980s saw those boycotts as a means of
overcoming other forms of injustice,” the
legal organizations wrote.
They added, “While some may disagree that
one or another of those boycotts addressed
injustice, just as proponents of these bills
presumably disagree with those promoting the
Palestinian cause, the law is well settled
that participation in and support of such
boycotts is a form of political expression
fully protected by the Constitution.”
(This
article was updated after it was published
with follow-up tweets from Gov. Cuomo.)
|
