Israeli politicians are facing a mounting backlash at home and abroad against a controversial new law that seeks to penalise all supporters of a boycott against Israel, including the West Bank settlements.

The bill was passed by parliament earlier this week, triggering fury on the Israeli left and delight among rightwingers and settlers. It will now have to be reviewed by Israel’s Supreme Court, amid allegations that it curtails freedom of expression and violates the country’s basic law.

The law takes aim at people or groups that call for an economic, cultural or academic boycott of Israel and areas under Israeli control – a clear reference to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It allows the targets of such a boycott to demand payments from boycott supporters “independently of actual damage done”. Under the provisions of the law, the state can also revoke tax privileges and public funding from any institution, group or person that backs a boycott.

Yehuda Weinstein, the Israeli attorney-general, has promised to defend the bill before the country’s highest court, but he also admitted that it raised “significant constitutional problems”.

The law has proved so controversial that it has even drawn criticism from foreign governments, including the US and Britain, and from groups that are normally staunch defenders of Israel. Abraham Foxman, a prominent pro-Israel activist and head of the US-based Anti-Defamation League, told Israel’s Army Radio on Wednesday: “It is a sad day for Israeli democracy.” The anti-boycott law, he added, was “unnecessary legislation which will only do damage to the democratic state of Israel”.

The bill, which was tabled by a member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has also infuriated human rights groups, some of which now fear that their activities could be targeted under the new legislation. “Whatever one thinks of boycotts, a law that punishes peaceful advocacy in opposition to government policies is a bald-faced attempt to muzzle public debate,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at New York-based Human Rights Watch. “This law attacks Israeli civil society and will turn back the clock on freedom of expression and association.”

Zeev Elkin, the Likud legislator who led the drafting of the bill, initially wanted to make support for a boycott a criminal offence. He described the final outcome as “vegetarian”, but insisted that the law was necessary to “defend” the state of Israel against detractors from within.

He said: “We have no right to ask our allies to do the same [and act against anti-Israel boycotts], if an Israeli citizen can do as he wishes.”

Pro-Palestinian activists in Europe and the US have recently stepped up calls for different forms of anti-Israel boycotts, most notably against companies and products from Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank. Some artists and music groups, however, have decided to shun Israel, and refuse to appear anywhere in the Jewish state. There is also a small but vociferous effort, especially in Britain, to implement an “academic boycott” against universities and research facilities in Israel.

In Israel, a group of prominent artists decided last year to boycott all theatres and cultural institutions in the settlements. Some Israelis also refuse to purchase goods manufactured or grown in the settlements.

Source: ft.com