By Whitney Webb
WASHINGTON – In an evening vote that
garnered essentially no national media coverage, the U.S. Senate voted last night to advance the
“Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019” – sometimes
called the
“anti-BDS bill” for its component that would allow state
and local governments to punish companies or individuals who support the
non-violent Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement aimed at promoting Palestinian
rights and ending Israeli apartheid and military occupation of the West Bank.
The bill was, notably, numbered S.1 – the Senate’s first legislative act of its
2019-20 session.
Numerous rights groups, politicians and civil rights advocates have accused
this measure of violating freedom of speech and setting a dangerous precedent
for the private political activism of American citizens, all on behalf of a
foreign country.
The bill was adopted by the Senate in a vote of 74 in favor to 19 against, with seven
abstentions. The bill had previously
been blocked by Senate Democrats by a 56-44 vote as part of
their objection to acting on legislation during the government shutdown.
However, many of those Democratic senators who had previously blocked the bill
ultimately voted in support of the measure. In order to become law, the measure
would still need to pass the Democrat-run House of Representatives. However,
given the amount of support for the measure among Democrats and the power of
the Israel lobby, the bill stands a considerable chance of passing the House.
Some commentators have paid particular attention to how Democratic senators
considered to be 2020 hopefuls voted on the bill. Several confirmed and likely
contenders for the upcoming Democratic nomination voted “No” – including Senators
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
However, Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA), whose private courting of
the Israel lobby was the subject of a
recent MintPress News report, abstained from
voting. Another notable abstention was Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who
had previously
threatened to filibuster a key component of the bill last
year, preventing its passage during the previous Congress.
Punishing organized dissent
The bill includes several
measures that were promoted by the Israel lobby last year
but did not make it through the previous Congress. These include the “Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of
2019” which would give a record-breaking $38 billion to Israel over the next 10
years, and which ultimately failed to pass after Sen. Paul threatened a
filibuster against it. That bill also requires Congress to give at
least $3.8 billion to Israel every subsequent year after the initial
10 years.
Other measures in the bill include the “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act
of 2019” – which imposes more sanctions on Syria and has been described
as a “rebuttal” to President Trump’s proposed Syria troop withdrawal, which
Israel also opposes – and the “The United States-Jordan Defense Cooperation
Extension Act,” which would also give money to Israel. Some
analysts have long asserted that U.S. security assistance
to Jordan and other regional countries such as Egypt is aimed at securing
regional support for Israeli and American geopolitical objectives in the Middle
East.
Yet, the most controversial part of the bill by far is the “Combating BDS
Act of 2019,” which would authorize state and local governments
to retaliate commercially against entities that support BDS, such as by halting
business with or refusing to contract or hire companies or individual citizens
who either actively participate in or support the movement. A previous version of
the bill included possible jail time as punishment for supporting a boycott of
Israel or Israeli settlements, their violation of international law
notwithstanding.
Some have
asserted that the current text of the bill would mean that
these same retaliatory measures would apply to boycotts targeting any country
considered an “ally” by the U.S. government – Saudi Arabia, for example – if
that boycott was not explicitly sanctioned by Washington. Others, such as
Senior Legislative Counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Kathleen Ruane, have asserted that the bill “sends a
message to Americans that they will be penalized if they dare to disagree
with their government.” The ACLU also
argued via Twitter that “states don’t have the ‘right’ to
punish individuals for participating in political boycotts the government
doesn’t agree with, which this bill encourages them to do.”
Such concerns over similar laws enacted at the state level led two federal
courts to rule that “anti-BDS” laws were unconstitutional for their restriction
on the right to free speech. However, the bill the Senate just advanced both
ignores and nullifies those court rulings by attempting to shield anti-BDS
legislation at the state level from future legal challenges. However, as a
recent MintPress report noted, the effort
to protect anti-BDS state legislation through the passage of national
legislation is unlikely to work.
A frighteningly slippery slope
The fact that the Senate just voted in favor of a bill to nullify the right
of American citizens to engage in political speech that is opposed by the U.S.
government should be headline news across the country. However, mention of the
vote has been notably absent from American mainstream news outlets Tuesday morning.
One would think that left-leaning news networks, ever eager to criticize the
Republican Party, would be quick to cover how the Republican-controlled Senate
just voted to restrict American political speech if it deviates from the
government’s own position. Yet the fact that the bill itself has several
co-sponsors from the Democratic Party, and is strongly supported by the
powerful Israel lobby, has apparently helped to earn their silence.
While the bill’s relation to the BDS movement – and, by extension, the
Israel/Palestine conflict – makes it a polarizing and largely partisan issue,
all Americans, regardless of political affiliation or their views on
Israel/Palestine, should be gravely concerned about not just the bill itself
but the precedent it would set should it become law. By encouraging retaliation
by the State against American citizens for making decisions about what to buy
and what not to buy in their private lives, a dangerous and chilling precedent
has been approved by 74 U.S. Senators in order to shield a foreign
country from criticism and the consequences of grassroots activism.
Under the guise of preventing “anti-Semitism,” this bill represents a fraught,
Orwellian overreach by Congress into the private lives of all Americans and
their right to make politically-motivated decisions.
If passed, it will not take much for the U.S. government to use this
precedent to silence Americans’ political speech when it comes to domestic matters.
Consider how the government would react if conservatives chose to boycott or
push for divestment from U.S. companies that profit from abortion? What if
anti-war activists chose to boycott or push for divestment from U.S. companies
that profit from our wars abroad? This slope is as slippery as they come and
the fact that a sizeable majority in the Senate has chosen to target a certain
political movement should sound alarm bells for all Americans who care about
free speech, regardless of their views on Israel/Palestine or their position on
the political spectrum.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for
MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has
appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire,
among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She
currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
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