Congress seeks to hand off Israel boycott fight to Trump
Congress is taking a third stab at legislation combating boycotts of Israel and its West Bank settlements by passing the buck to the Donald Trump administration.
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 15.0px 'Times New Roman'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} span.s2 {text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none; color: #0463c1; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #0463c1} Faced with months of backlash from civil liberties advocates, Congress is making a third attempt at passing legislation that has stalled for more than a year despite an aggressive push by pro-Israel lobbyists.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to advance the controversial Israel Anti-Boycott Act on Thursday. Like past efforts, the new version seeks to stop US businesses and their employees from complying with United Nations efforts to gather information on companies affiliated with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
However, the latest version of the bill under consideration makes a major change by directing the Donald Trump administration to implement anti-boycott regulations. That’s doing little to allay concerns of the original bill’s critics.
“It would be bad enough if Congress passed a law to criminalize individuals who participate in boycotts for Palestinian rights,” Josh Ruebner, the policy director at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, told Al-Monitor. “It’s even more concerning that Congress would now consider a version of this bill, which would allow the Trump administration to unilaterally write regulations.”
