Last week, the Senate passed a bill protecting state laws that prevent governments from contracting with corporations that boycott Israel. The bill has yet to pass in the House, but its opponents—including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—have described both it and the laws it upholds as an assault on freedom of speech, among other things. These attacks, writes David Bernstein, are based on sometimes deliberate misunderstandings of both constitutional law and what such bills do. Noting that he has “perhaps never seen as much misinformation and bad legal analysis regarding a given issue,” he refutes some common myths about these “anti-BDS” laws,:

Anti-BDS laws [after the movement to boycott, sanction, and divest from Israel] do not require anyone to “pledge loyalty to the state of Israel.” . . . This is a lie (not the first one) that originates with [the pro-Kremlin, anti-Israel polemicist] Glenn Greenwald, who claimed, in a headline no less, that a Texas anti-BDS law required a contractor to sign a “pro-Israel oath.” Contractors must simply certify that they are not participating in anti-Israel boycotts. They not only don’t have to take a pro-Israel oath but are free to criticize Israel as much as they like, donate to anti-Israel campaigns or candidates, and so on. Anti-BDS laws do not prohibit individuals in their private capacity from boycotting Israel, even if their company has business with a state that has an anti-BDS law. . . .

[Furthermore, the] pending federal legislation only makes the federal government neutral on state anti-BDS laws. . . . In fact, the Senate bill is a response to the possibility that courts will hold state anti-BDS laws as implicitly preempted by federal policy. By explicitly stating that the federal government does not wish to preempt such state laws, the danger of implied preemption goes away. But the bill doesn’t impose any restrictions on anybody, so it can’t threaten anyone’s free-speech rights. If there were a threat to free speech, it would come from state laws. However, boycotts are, according to the Supreme Court, economic action, not speech protected by the First Amendment. . . .

Many opponents suggest that states have no interest in foreign policy or what foreign governments do, so anti-BDS laws are an unprecedented gambit for state governments, explicable only by the nefarious power of the “Israel lobby.” False. During the 1980s, many states passed laws banning state contractors from dealings with South Africa. No one at the time suggested that contractors had a First Amendment right to deal with South Africa, even if they wanted to do so for ideological reasons.

[Moreover], federal law has banned U.S. entities from participating in or complying with the Arab League boycott of Israel since the late 1970s. . . . This law has been around for 40-plus years and has never been subject to a successful First Amendment challenge. This should give you some idea of how legally far-fetched the challenges to state anti-BDS laws are.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.