https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/To-protect-Israel-Texas-sacrifices-the-13483003.php
What do a speech pathologist, a freelance writer, a reporter and university students in Texas have in common with a weekly paper in Arkansas, a lawyer in Arizona, and a math teacher in Kansas? They have all had to choose between signing a loyalty oath to Israel and forgoing payment for their services from state agencies. And they have all fought back.
This month, two lawsuits have challenged the constitutionality of a Texas law that requires anyone doing business with a state entity — including cities, school districts and public universities — to affirm that they do not boycott Israel and will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract.
Rather than Texas fighting a losing battle in court, the Legislature should repeal the law in the upcoming session.
Too many Texans have already been subjected to this ill-considered mandate. Last year, this law prompted the city of Dickinson to require residents to pledge not to boycott Israel in order to receive aid in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. After public outcry, the city limited the requirement to businesses rather than individual homeowners.
Lawsuits have challenged similar contract requirements in Arizona, Kansas and Arkansas. Pledges not to boycott Israel are also required in state contracts in Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, and Ohio. Twenty-six states have some form of law on the books aiming to discourage people from engaging in boycotts for Palestinian rights. These laws are brazen violations of the right to free speech.
Why would a Texas school district or public radio station need contractors to sign an oath of loyalty to Israel? Why are so many lawmakers adopting obviously unconstitutional laws?
As the global movement for Palestinian rights has grown, so too have efforts to shut it down. In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a global call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions to support the movement for Palestinian equality and freedom. They modeled it after a similar call from South Africans to challenge the apartheid regime there.
The reality on the ground — and since last summer, enshrined in Israel’s fundamental Basic Law — is that Palestinians have fewer rights than Jewish Israelis — whether they are citizens of Israel or live in Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem or besieged in the Gaza Strip.
For those in the international community moved by the overwhelming injustices that have dispossessed Palestinians of their land, livelihood and dignity over the span of seven decades, boycotts are a way to demand freedom and equality for Palestinians through everyday consumer and investment choices at a time when our own government facilitates the oppression of Palestinians and shields Israel from accountability.
Boycotts have long been employed to leverage collective economic pressure to achieve freedom and equality — and supporters of the status quo have long attempted to use the law to stop them.
In 1973, 17 business owners in Mississippi sued the NAACP and local activists over a boycott of white businesses that had been adopted as part of a local campaign for racial equality and integration. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which held in 1982 that boycotts to bring about political, social and economic change are protected under the First Amendment.
To Protect Israel, Texas Sacrifices the Constitution
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