Like international law, domestic law too can be employed in less-than-legally-coherent ways. One example is the “Not in Our Dime Act,” introduced to the New York State legislature by two lawmakers aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). A Congressional ally of the DSA, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has recently thrown her support behind the measure. To Dan McLaughlin, it is both bad policy and bad law:

The bill aims to ban not-for-profit corporations in New York from engaging in “unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.” . . . Notice that you do not need to engage personally in such activity to fall within the act’s prohibitory sweep; aiding and abetting is enough; . . . the bill’s authors plainly aim to use the mere threat of legal action to chill fundraising.

The bill is bad on the merits and bad in principle. It takes sides in the Israel-Palestinian conflict firmly against Israel. It would embroil New York courts in fact-finding that an American state court, with subpoena powers limited in geographic scope, is ill-equipped to resolve.

It’s debatable what is worse: that this legislation would single out only Jews, or the prospect that it would set a precedent to go after other charities.

One of Hamas’s most notable failures since October 7 is that it has not succeeded in inspiring a violent uprising either among the Palestinians of the West Bank or the Arab citizens of Israel. The latter seem horrified by Hamas’s actions and tend to sympathize with their own country. In the former case, quiet has been maintained by the IDF and Shin Bet, which have carried out a steady stream of arrests, raids, and even airstrikes.

But there is a third category of Arab living in Israel, namely the Arabs of Jerusalem, whose intermediate legal status gives them access to Israeli social services and the right to vote in municipal elections. They may also apply for Israeli citizenship if they so desire, although most do not.

On Wednesday, off-duty Israeli soldiers in the Old City of Jerusalem shot at a Palestinian who, it seems, was attempting to attack them. But this incident is a rare exception to the quiet that has prevailed in Arab Jerusalem since the war began. Eytan Laub asked a friend in an Arab neighborhood why:

Listen, he said, we . . . have much to lose. We already fear that any confrontation would have consequences. Making trouble may put our residence rights at risk. Furthermore, he added, not a few in the neighborhood, including his own family, have applied for Israeli citizenship and participating in disturbances would hardly help with that.

Such an attitude reflects a general trend since the end of the second intifada:

In recent years, the numbers of [Arab] Jerusalemites applying for Israeli citizenship has risen, as the social stigma of becoming Israeli has begun to erode and despite an Israeli naturalization process that can take years and result in denial (because of the requirement to show Jerusalem residence or the need to pass a Hebrew language test). The number of east Jerusalemites granted citizenship has also risen, from 827 in 2009 to over 1,600 in 2020.

Oddly enough, Laub goes on to argue, the construction of the West Bank separation fence in the early 2000s, which cuts through the Arab-majority parts of Jerusalem, has helped to encouraged better relations.