Anti-BDS laws

With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities. Most organized boycotts of Israel have been led by Palestinians and other Arabs with support from much of the Muslim world. Since the Second Intifada in particular, these efforts have primarily been coordinated at an international level by the Palestinian-led BDS movement ("Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions"), which seeks to mount as much economic pressure on Israel as possible until the Israeli government allows an independent Palestinian state to be established.^[1] Anti-BDS laws are designed to make it difficult for anti-Israel people and organizations to participate in boycotts; anti-BDS legal resolutions are symbolic and non-binding parliamentary condemnations, either of boycotts of Israel or of the BDS movement itself. Generally, such condemnations accuse BDS of closeted antisemitism, charging it with pushing a double standard and lobbying for the de-legitimization of Israeli sovereignty, and are often followed by laws targeting boycotts of Israel.

Proponents of anti-BDS laws claim that BDS is a form of antisemitism, and so such laws legislate against hate speech. Opponents claim that Israel's supporters are engaging in lawfare by lobbying for anti-BDS laws that infringe upon the right to free speech, and conflating anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism.^[2]

The specific provisions of anti-BDS laws vary widely. Legislation, to any degree, against boycotts of Israel is prevalent in much of the Western world, and especially in the United States, which has been Israel's closest ally on the international stage since the 1960s. Conversely, legislation promoting or enforcing boycotts of Israel is prevalent in much of the Muslim world, with the most prominent example being that of the Arab League boycott of Israel, which was first imposed in 1945 as part of an effort to weaken the Yishuv by targeting the Jewish economy in the British Mandate for Palestine.