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Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

It's not just Texas. Try public voicing anti-Israel anything and you'll quickly learn how our freedoms are a farce.

I don’t follow. Is it not possible in the US to criticize Israel?

BDS is going a bit beyond criticism.

Does nobody remember the backlash against France for not participating in the wars in the Middle East? Companies publicly boycotted French products and went to the extent of replacing the word "French" with "Freedom" in words like "French fries" or "French toast".

Boycotting Jewish companies (for being owned by Jewish people) is antisemitic, but the goal of BDS is boycotting Israeli companies over accusations against the Israeli government the same way e.g. the US sanctions Iranian companies over accusations against the Iranian government.

There is nothing wrong with boycotting Israel or any other country for a reason of your choosing. The problem with BDS is its complete dishonesty, it passes ongoing armed conflict for something else.

The "BDS movement" is not an organization and does not have a sharp boundary, but insofar as it has something vaguely like a boundary, the vast majority of the people inside of it are not engaged in armed conflict against Israel, are not supporting armed conflict against Israel, and never have been.

Even if the majority of them were, the defining issue for BDS itself is not doing business with Israeli entities. Not doing business is not armed conflict. For you to have a point, they would have to somehow using the boycott itself to aid in shooting up the place. That doesn't even pass the laugh test.

So? Everyday people want to "BDS" China for their human rights abuses, Russia for their territorial and cyber aggression. There are countries in the world doing shitty things in the eyes of some, and those people and orgs sometimes call for political and economic pressure to be applied.

Why should the government be able to punish individuals who voice such opinions, excepting diplomatic or national security roles?

Exactly how is BDS going beyond criticism?

Do the recent reports on Israeli treatment of Palestinians go beyond criticism?

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...

What about B'Tselem's report? Is that beyond criticism?

https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid

It is. The freedom they're referring to is a freedom from consequences resulting from their speech.

Freedom from consequences from the state, which is absolutely a right they should have that the state attempts to deny.

You're reflexively labeled anti-Semitic and often castigated for it.

I'm confused. That in no way reduces your freedom.

Equal treatment under the law is a key tenet of freedom. If you are bidding on a government contract, your bid should be equally considered along with everyone else’s on its merits, irrespective of whatever your personal beliefs on unrelated matters might be.

Company policy and personal beliefs are very different things. The former has many legal restrictions while the latter is immutable. I don't understand why you are conflating the two. This law is entirely relevant to companies not individuals.

So I understand that this exact clause is in contracts which must be signed by paid speakers at public universities. I.e. you cannot boycott Israel and give a lecture at a university. Would you consider that an infringement on speech?

Companies are made up of people. There is nothing that only affects companies and not people. A company is just a legal abstraction that represents a group of people.

If this systematically happens to journalists, it is kind of limiting what can be said in places amplified by media.

I think this is exactly what happens.

That's a common problem across the board, voicing anything pro or against Israel will potentially alienate a nontrivial amount of customers.

Which US MSM news channel voices out against Israel?

They have apartheid in the lawbooks, but I think no US MSM channel goes as far to dare to say this... They dare say it about Arab countries (maltreatment of migrant workers). They've said it about South-Africa.

>> I don’t follow. Is it not possible in the US to criticize Israel?

> You're reflexively labeled anti-Semitic and often castigated for it.

So? Freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism or reproach.

Republicans and certain evangelical sects of Christians here, along with the American Jewish lobby, intentionally and constantly associate any criticism of the Israeli government with hatred of the Jewish people.

This is clearly not everyone in the US, but it's enough that if you're a business or public figure who makes noise about it, you'll be branded anti-Semetic by a particular "news-as-hatred" cable network and certain members of Congress.

It is not possible to mention Israel in any manner other than positive. All I said was Israel is a protected topic, and look at the controversy of that and the down votes, proving my point.

This is not new. Try supporting communism in any time since the 30s. Try being openly gay in any era before the 1980s. Fundamentally, any society has bounds on the "true" freedom of speech, and America, despite its best intentions, is no different.

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