A Recent Ruling against an Anti-Boycott Law Misconstrues Precedent

In a ruling issued last week, the Texas federal judge Robert Pitman declared a law forbidding the state to contract with businesses that boycott Israel in violation of the First Amendment. David Bernstein, calling the judge’s opinion “a mess,” exposes some of the key flaws in its legal reasoning:

First, the opinion misstates the holding of [the 1982 Supreme Court case] NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware as “recognizing that the First Amendment protects political boycott.” [But] the case actually holds that there is a First Amendment right to advocate economic boycotts, not to engage in them. If there were a First Amendment right to boycott for political reasons, then anyone politically opposed to racial integration, gay rights, and so on would have a First Amendment right to “boycott” minority groups protected by civil-rights laws. That’s in fact the implication of Judge Pitman’s opinion, and it’s hard to believe he means it. It’s even harder to believe the Supreme Court would endorse his opinion given this implication.

Second, [in the 2005 case of] Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, the Supreme Court held that law schools had no First Amendment right to boycott military recruiters in the face of a federal statute barring recipients of federal funds from discriminating against those recruiters. Pitman’s attempt to [show that this ruling does not apply to the case at hand] comes down to the fact that the Court never used the word boycott in its opinion. . . .

[But] what the law-school plaintiffs were doing was clearly within the definition of the word boycott; and the plaintiffs, in their own Supreme Court brief, themselves described what they were doing as a boycott.

Read more at Volokh Conspiracy

More about: American law, BDS, First Amendment

After Taking Steps toward Reconciliation, Turkey Has Again Turned on Israel

“The Israeli government, blinded by Zionist delusions, seizes not only the UN Security Council but all structures whose mission is to protect peace, human rights, freedom of the press, and democracy,” declared the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech on Wednesday. Such over-the-top anti-Israel rhetoric has become par for the course from the Turkish head of state since Hamas’s attack on Israel last year, after which relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have been in what Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak describes as “free fall.”

While Erdogan has always treated Israel with a measure of hostility, the past few years had seen steps to reconciliation. Yanarocak explains this sharp change of direction, which is about much more than the situation in Gaza:

The losses at the March 31, 2024 Turkish municipal elections were an unbearable blow for Erdoğan. . . . In retrospect it appears that Erdoğan’s previous willingness to continue trade relations with Israel pushed some of his once-loyal supporters toward other Islamist political parties, such as the New Welfare Party. To counter this trend, Erdoğan halted trade relations, aiming to neutralize one of the key political tools available to his Islamist rivals.

Unsurprisingly, this decision had a negative impact on Turkish [companies] engaged in trade with Israel. To maintain their long-standing trade relationships, these companies found alternative ways to conduct business through intermediary Mediterranean ports.

The government in Ankara also appears to be concerned about the changing balance of power in the region. The weakening of Iran and Hizballah could create an unfavorable situation for the Assad regime in Syria, [empowering Turkish separatists there]. While Ankara is not fond of the mullahs, its core concern remains Iran’s territorial integrity. From Turkey’s perspective, the disintegration of Iran could set a dangerous precedent for secessionists within its own borders.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Iran, Israel diplomacy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey