The Illinois legislature recently passed a bill to “prevent the state’s pension fund from investing in companies that boycott Israel.” Similar legislation is being considered in other states, as well as by Congress. Eugene Kontorovich explains what these efforts can accomplish:
The significance of the [Illinois] bill cannot be underestimated. European countries have in recent years been whispering dark threats in corporate ears about the “legal and economic risks” of doing business with Israeli companies. The vagueness of these warnings is a testament to their legal groundlessness. But such scare tactics could not help affecting, at the margin, corporate decision-making. Now, the EU—if it is honest—will have to warn businesses of the legal and economic risks of consciously refusing to do business with such Israeli companies.
More generally, the Illinois bill is part of a broad political revulsion over the long-simmering BDS movement. While BDS has gotten most of its successes with low-hanging fruit like British academic unions and pop singers, the anti-boycott efforts are getting an enthusiastic reception in real governments, on the state and federal level. And that is because the message of the BDS movement—Israel as a uniquely villainous state—is fundamentally rejected by the vast majority of Americans.
More about: American politics, BDS, European Union, Israel & Zionism, US-Israel relations