Since March, the California legislature has struggled to draft a bill aimed at thwarting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. As readers of these pages know, BDS is a movement that promotes South Africa-style boycott and divestment strategies to oppose Israel and its policies. For many of its supporters, BDS is a way to challenge the very legitimacy of the Jewish state.
After a torturous path of amendment and revision, the State legislature now has in AB 2844 something it thinks it can live with. But the revised bill, however well-intentioned, remains seriously flawed. Governor Brown should veto it.
Earlier versions of the bill would have created a list of companies that participate in BDS – defined to include boycotts targeting Israel or settlements – and prohibited companies on the list from becoming state contractors (a blacklist). After being cautioned by its own legal counsel that economic boycotts qualify as protected free speech under the First Amendment, the legislature abandoned its original scheme and converted AB 2844 into a generic anti-discrimination law.
It seems there is no line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t cross to defend
settlements. Israeli law says settlers can’t steal Israeli-recognized Palestinian private land for their own
purposes? Netanyahu leaves no principle of rule of law unchallenged in the 
On Monday, September 5th, Decision at 50, a new organization composed of Shalom Achshav
(Peace Now), Israel’s preeminent peace movement, in cooperation with other Israeli civil society
organizations, issued the following press release:
Amona is the largest illegal outpost in the West Bank, home to some fifty families, located near
the settlement of Ofra, northeast of Ramallah. Built on some 100 acres of land registered as privately-owned by
Palestinians, the outpost was built without permits from the Israeli government, but with the direct and
indirect support of Israeli authorities. In 2006, following a decision of the Israeli High Court of Justice,
nine structures in the outpost were demolished – but in the years since, the outpost has grown and flourished.
Now, the High Court is forcing the Israeli government to take action once again to remove the illegal
construction – but rather than simply removing the outpost, the Israeli government has decided to re-locate it –
to another area of privately-owned Palestinian land.
The Israeli government is in the process of establishing – by stealth –the first new settlement
complex (28 units, providing housing for some 100 settlers, or a 10% increase in the settler population in the
area) in Hebron in more than a decade. This action directly contravenes Israeli law, which prohibits seizing
lands for military needs and then using them for the purpose of settlements. It also contradicts the principle
of distinction between civilians and combatants, and constitutes a clear violation of International Humanitarian
Law. In addition, allocating these properties to the settlers based on the argument that they belonged to Jews
before 1948 in essence constitutes implementation of a “right of return” for Jews, at the expense of protected
Palestinians tenants – even as Palestinians are denied any parallel “right of return” to properties they left or
were expelled from before 1948. The Israeli Peace Now movement uncovered this story and is leading the effort to
pressure the Israeli government to cancel these plans.