“The Passover Haggadah speaks of the promise made in the Heavens for the survivability of the Jewish nations, despite its enemies: ‘This is what stood by our forefathers and us. For in every generation they try to destroy us, and the Holy One blessed be He saves us from their hands.’” These lines, reflections by Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, were published April 3 in an opinion on the eve of Passover.

Rubinstein’s musings animate his arguments for backing legislation dubbed the “anti-boycott law,” which allows suing anyone for damages who publicly calls for “deliberately avoiding economic, cultural or academic ties with another person or body solely because of their affinity with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its control.” The law states that should the court be convinced that a public call for imposing a boycott for the cited reasons was voiced with malicious intent, it has the right to force the boycotting party to pay damages to the plaintiff.

According to the bill passed by the Knesset in 2011, plaintiffs do not have to prove that they actually suffered harm. On appeal, the High Court revoked this article, so plaintiffs must prove linkage between the call for a boycott and any financial damage they feel they suffered. In addition, the bill allows the government, with the approval of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, to set regulations to limit participation in tenders by those who knowingly publish a public call for boycotting or who commit themselves to taking part in a boycott. Similarly, the government can revoke eligibility for governmental support or funding.

“There is no flaw in the Knesset giving expression in law to a struggle against those who try to destroy us,” Rubinstein said. The justice had in the past served as attorney general, Cabinet secretary and as deputy chief of mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. With these words, he actually gave a legal stamp of approval to imposing Israeli state law on territory outside its borders, which is another way of calling for the annexation of the West Bank. Together with four of his colleagues in an assembly of nine justices of the High Court, Rubinstein equated a boycott against the wineries of the northern Israeli town of Zikhron Ya'akov with a boycott of wine produced in a Hebron Hills settlement. Thus, while blurring the issue of the Green Line boundary, the justices placed a question mark over the boundaries of free speech in Israel.