What a steaming pile. Israel hasn’t “imposed” anything on us.
Well that’s another lie. They take an average of around 40-45,000 refugees and asylees in annually.
The entire non native ■■■■■■ population is made up of refugees and asylees and has been since 47.
Most of the so called palestinians are the refuse and refugees that poured out of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt over the last forty years as well. They of course have been working to overthrow the gov’t that gave them a home since first arriving.
Read it any way you want but the fact is, government, both state and federal have been pushing and penalizing companies that even have the appearance of aligning themselves with the BDS movement. Congress is solidifying those penalties in this bill … and they don’t even require that you actively support a foreign boycott… only that your actions contribute to that support.
(1) in subsection (a)(1)—
(A) in the matter preceding subparagraph
(A)—
(i) by inserting ‘‘, or request to impose any boycott by a foreign country,’’
after ‘‘a foreign country’’;
(ii) by inserting ‘‘, or support any
boycott fostered or imposed by any international governmental organization against Israel
In other words you don’t even have to be actively implementing a boycott of a foreign government, only that your actions align to support that boycott…
Don’t participate in the BDS movement and you have no worries.
You are still free to buy whatever you want no matter where it was produced as long as it’s a legal product.
If you politically align yourself… as an American (I assume you still have the right to an opinion) with the intent of the BDS movement (Even if you have never even heard of it), you open your self up to 1) following the edicts of a foreign entity and 2) penalties for opinions and rightful actions of your own company because of your own political view. My issue is not with the subject matter, Israel… It is with the governments continued efforts to tell individual business who and how it conducts business. To the specific matter, if you believe… if you have always believed that any business that operates outside Israels official borders is someone you refuse to do business with… you automatically align yourself against the US government and with foreign sponsors of a boycott even if your views preceded the movement.
Gov’t has been telling businesses how, when, where, and with whom they can do business for 242 years in this country.
This is nothing new. It was illegal to do business with the British Crown or it’s colonies as far back as the war of 1812 and limitations on doing business with them as far back as the end of the Revolution.
Yes, the government has blank banned trade with specific countries… it has also blanket banned specific material and goods from trade but forcing citizens to do business regardless of their political views is a relatively new twist in the ‘Strong Federal’ concept of government. I take it you are a neoHamiltonian and are for the unlimited expanse of the ‘implied powers’ theory.
It is not what the bill is doing.
Really.
That’s exactly what it’s doing. If it wasn’t doing that they wouldn’t have needed a bill, and if passed, a law.
If I support something like BDS and give money to organizations promoting it then I get in trouble. That’s the plain language.
Well now … you are getting closer to understanding. But THAT is very very different than you personally boycotting Israeli products… which the bill does not prohibit.
BTW… I suspect if you send money to the Mullahs of Iran or Kim Jong Un, you might catch some flak too.
What do you mean getting closer? I understand the issue just fine.
When did international organizations and NGOs become sovereign states? Asking for a friend.
Not sure of the significance of sovereign states. I posted the definition of THE boycott here. I acknowledge that, in my haste, I just grabbed one quickly and that maybe another is more correct. There is nothing here that limits the “boycott” to an activity of a sovereign state. But that still does not translate into your personal choice to boycott … which we all agree is your right…being prohibited by the bill…
Again I ask… What is a boycott but the deliberate withholding of business from a business or organization? The government has told us, as I said above where we CANNOT travel or what products we CANNOT sell to a particular nation but now it is telling us that if we withhold the enrichment of the GDP of an allied country, in this case Israel, we can and might be penalized because our efforts supported those of a foreign entity…
If it doesn’t say that, then please clear up my misunderstanding. As I showed in the article above, the precursor to this federal law are individual state laws that black listed companies for the political views because the ‘aligned’ with the view of some other country or organization. Both you and TWR are adamant that my reading is wrong… show me where in my ignorance lies…
See… within the body of the legislation is the addition of the word ‘Support’. So if you do something unilaterally that aligns itself with the purpose and intent of a foreign group you lend … support to that effort.
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Ridiculous. I unilaterally support the right of Iranian Muslims to pray to Allah. So does the state of Iran. Only the most confused person would say I support Iran.
Well, it was a response to your statement:
The individual(s) you mentioned are the leaders of sovereign states. This bill has nothing to do with US citizens sending money to sovereign states or their leaders / representatives for unspecified reasons.
That has nothing to do with this bill or the context of the discussion surrounding it.
I have watched for the last three years, the US Federal Government pick and chose who is a criminal and go to great lengths to find a crime to fit the person… don’t tell me what with rampant asset forfeitures but no convictions that the US government does not take it’s ability to apply the law as it choses is not a valid concern.
P.S. your supporting the right of someone to pray is not the same thing as withholding business as punishment for them doing/not doing it.
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I provided it as a simply counterexample to the assumption that an independent and unilateral alignment with a national or international activity that has been deemed illegal or hostile automatically places my independent and unilateral action in the same illegal and hostile status as far as our government is concerned.
Seriously… you thought the post was irrelevant? Like they tell you in tests… “if you don’t know, go on to the next one”.
You are simply debating now on how far a metaphor or analogy can and should be carried. Tomato tomaato.
I think we have made some progress here.
I’m trying really hard to understand what your position is on this. The only thing that I can gather is that you support it for whatever reason but won’t really say why. When people criticize it you bring up random examples that have absolutely nothing to do with the context of the discussion. Maybe I’m missing something. I got no problem admitting then I’m wrong or may have misread something. But as it stands right now I understand what this bill is trying to do and I don’t agree with it. I don’t think it should become law. I don’t think lobbyists for a foreign country should be telling American citizens what businesses, charitable groups, NGOs, and IOs they should and shouldn’t be supporting.
The fact is BDS has support on both the left and the right. The only thing this bill is trying to do is make that support illegal. Let’s be honest.