Anti-BDS Act Introduced in Congress

Photo Credit: https://zeldin.house.gov/

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act (H.R. 5595), which would combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, was introduced to the US House of Representatives, the latest piece of legislation to target the anti-Israel organization in the US.

Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1) was joined by 60 of his colleagues on Tuesday in introducing the Anti-Boycott Act, an amendment to the Export Administration Act of 1979 that prohibits boycotts against US allies and prohibits requests for boycotts imposed by international governmental organizations against Israel.

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The act “protects American companies from being coerced to provide information to international organizations for the purpose of furthering boycotts against Israel and holds individuals who attempt to violate this protection accountable,” Zeldin stated.

The bill also “establishes Congress’ opposition” to the BDS movement and establishes that Congress considers the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) creation of a database of companies doing business in Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights “to be an act of BDS.”

The UNHRC report, which was first commissioned in 2016, seeks to create a database of companies doing business in “the Occupied Territories” and has been slammed by both Israel and the US as a “blacklist” that will encourage boycotts of the Jewish state.

“We have witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hate throughout the world, in our nation, on college campuses and within the halls of Congress under the guise of the BDS movement, and whether this bigotry is brazen or it’s blatant anti-Semitism deceptively called ‘legitimate’ we must crush it wherever it exists,” Zeldin stated.