Water Cooler 12/22/2018 – Open Thread – State Anti-BDS Efforts


A different kind of WC from me today – I’m hoping to gin up some discussion about what you’ve hearing in your area on this topic.

The story that caught my eye
I saw in the news this week that our local school district is part of a lawsuit filed by a Religion of Peace follower who has been contracting here for nearly a decade. The reason? An anti-BDS law signed by Gov Abbott 18 months ago bans state contractors unless they pledge not to join BDS efforts.

Advertisement

Since liberals love to phrase things in the most cringe-inducing ways, the Houston Chrinicle calls it a “pro-Israel oath”. The woman affected supports BDS and says following the law would be “betraying Palestinians suffering under an occupation that I believe is unjust and thus, become complicit in their repression.”

That got me to do some digging
To be honest, I did not even know about anti-BDS efforts at the state level. It turns out that lots of states – some extremely blue and some deep red – have joined anti-BDS efforts. A handy chart is here.

Some of these seem a bit hypocritical since liberals are the most pro-Palestinian people outside of Religion of Peace practitioners – it’s almost like some of them hate Israel but love Jewish campaign contributions. But let’s say I’m too cynical and give everyone the benefit of the doubt and say it’s all for the right reasons.

What have you heard?
Where I work it’s put in a much more generic way: we don’t do business with customers who engage in boycotts of countries not on the terrorist list or something like that. Some states may be more generic than others, but they are all obviously anti-BDS.

Advertisement

It sounds like the ACLU is fighting this all over the place, but like I said I didn’t even realize such great efforts were going on. Have you heard much in your state about it and any blowback from it?

Welcome to RedState’s only daily open thread! You can of course comment on this or anything else. Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos