Peter Szymanski
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read

Is Peacefully Criticizing Israel about to become a crime in the USA in violation of free speech? The writer: Mr. Joseph Levine is a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the author of “Quality and Content: Essays on Consciousness, Representation and Modality” and a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Advisory Council, says:

As of now, 24 states have enacted legislation that in some way allows the state to punish those who openly engage in or advocate the peaceful protest Boycott Israel Movement (B.D.S.), and similar legislation is pending in 12 more states. At the federal level, a bill called the Israel Anti-Boycott Act would criminalize adherence to any boycott of Israel called for by an international agency (like the United Nations). The bill has garnered 57 Senate co-sponsors and 290 House co-sponsors, and may very well come up for a vote soon.

While these bills certainly constitute threats to free speech — (a view shared by the ACLU) — the writer is interested in a more subtle effect of a fairly widespread anti-B.D.S. strategy: specifically co-opting rhetoric of the anti-Trump resistance, which opposes the growing influence of racist hate groups, in order to brand B.D.S. as a hate group itself.

This sounds very similar to what the Israel lobby group did to Poland blaming, finger pointing, fabricating problems.

If you think that the American Revolution was fought for the right of free speech to criticize the King of England for taxation without representation, and America is about to legislate away its free speech rights to criticize and participate in non-violent protest against another foreign power — Israel, well let’s just call this what it is… a threat to the American way of life and the fundamental principles of democracy it has since its inception stood for, and who stands behind this but the Israeli lobby groups.

Better to say this before it becomes subject to prosecution and persecution.

Is Boycotting Israel ‘Hate’? https://nyti.ms/2PAF94B?smid=nytcore-ios-share

@paulkrugman NY Times @nytimesopinion

Peter Szymanski

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