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.

In a speech last Wednesday, Hizballah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah not only declared that “nowhere will be safe” in Israel in the event of an all-out war, but also that his forces would attack the island nation of Cyprus. Hanin Ghaddar, Farzin Nadimi, and David Schenker observe that this is no idle threat, but one the Iran-backed terrorist group has “a range of options” for carrying out. They explain: 

Nasrallah’s threat to Cyprus was not random—the republic has long maintained close ties with Israel, much to Hizballah’s irritation. In recent years, the island has hosted multiple joint air-defense drills and annual special-forces exercises with Israel focused on potential threats from Hizballah and Iran.

Nasrallah’s threat should also be viewed in the context of wartime statements by Iran and its proxies about disrupting vital shipping lanes to Israel through the East Mediterranean.

This scenario should be particularly troubling to Washington given the large allied military presence in Cyprus, which includes a few thousand British troops, more than a hundred U.S. Air Force personnel, and a detachment of U-2 surveillance aircraft from the 1st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron.

Yoni Ben Menachem suggests there is an additional aspect to Nasrallah’s designs on Cyprus, involving a plan

to neutralize the Israeli air force through two primary actions: a surprise attack with precision missiles and UAVs on Israeli air-force bases and against radar and air-defense facilities, including paralyzing Ben-Gurion Airport.

Nasrallah’s goal is to ground Israeli aircraft to prevent them from conducting missions in Lebanon against mid- and long-range missile launchers. Nasrallah fears that Israel might preempt his planned attack by deploying its air force to Cypriot bases, a scenario the Israeli air force practiced with Cyprus during military exercises over the past year.