Anti-BDS laws

Anti-BDS laws are legislation that retaliate against those that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws, 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, which seeks to mount as much economic pressure on Israel as possible until the Israeli government allows an independent Palestinian state to be established. 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.

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.

Israel's government has faced longstanding criticism of its conduct in the Palestinian territories it has occupied since 1967. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared in an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation was illegal and should be brought to an end as quickly as possible. Existing settlements should be evacuated and reparations paid to Palestinians who had lost land and property. The court also found that Israel was in violation of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Prevention of Racial Discrimination, which imposes a duty on states to "condemn racial segregation and apartheid" and to "prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction".

The court further said member states should not recognize Israel's occupation as legal, nor should they render aid or assistance in maintaining it – a ruling that could "force companies and member states to differentiate between Israel and occupied territory when it comes to trade", according to a senior legal adviser of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights quoted by the Washington Post.

After the Oslo Accords had failed to bring peace between Israel and Palestine, believing Western leaders were no longer committed in holding Israel accountable for the allegations against human rights, Palestinian human right activists conceived a new peaceful movement to boycott Israel, for example, through refusal to buy any goods from Israel, in particular those made in the Israeli-occupied territories, or divesting funds from Israeli corporations. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, "BDS" for short, was formally announced in 2005, with the primary goal of pressuring Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

The Israeli government and its supporters believe that the BDS movement conforms to the definitions of antisemitism, most notably in applying to Israel a double standard and delegitimizing the state of Israel.

As of 2024, 38 states have passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts of Israel. Many of them have been passed with broad bipartisan support. Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel. Separately, the U.S. Congress has considered anti-boycott legislation in reaction to the BDS movement. The U.S. Senate passed S.1, which contained anti-boycott provisions, on 28 January 2019, by a vote of 74–19. The U.S. House passed a resolution condemning the boycott of Israel on 24 July 2019, by a vote of 398–17. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Mike Braun (R-IN), Rick Scott (R-FL), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and Steve Daines (R-MT) reintroduced the Combating BDS Act of 2023. So far, no federal law has been adopted. There has been debate over whether the laws violate the right to free speech and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) have challenged many of them in court cases.