“The legislation, which passed in a 237-169 vote, could put universities in a precarious position. ‘The goal here is to basically say every university not only cannot refuse cooperation with Israel but must actively seek every opportunity to cooperate with Israel,’ Lara Friedman, the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, told RS ahead of the vote. ‘And if they’re not doing that, they’re pro-BDS and anti-Israel.’ In an earlier analysis of the bill, Friedman noted that the bill could open the door for legal action against a school, because politically minded individuals or groups could ‘search for and point to the absence of some relations with Israel to allege that a university lied in that certification.’

[snip]

“Friedman told RS that this distinction goes much further than the immediate fight over Israel, calling it part of an effort to ‘not just erode but, for all practical purposes, erase any First Amendment protection for the right to boycott.'”

“Foundation for Middle East Peace President Lara Friedman broke down the legislation in a recent newsletter, noting that the law would essentially force universities to prove a negative. ‘This legislation sets up an situation in which the alleged absence of engagement with any Israeli partner/party, including in settlements, will become the basis for an accusation of boycott, putting universities in the position where, if the universities want to avoid being accused of boycotting Israel/settlements, they will need to adopt an affirmative policy of prioritizing maximal engagement/partnership with Israeli entities (including in settlements),’ she wrote.”

“…Foxx stated that the bill ‘severs any possible taxpayer support of these concrete campaigns of antisemitism in the form of BDS and academic boycotts of Israel,’ using the acronym for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement. But Lara Friedman, president of the nonprofit Foundation for Middle East Peace, points out that the bill goes far beyond controlling taxpayer funds.

The bill would create a cause for lawsuits under the False Claims Act against universities accused of boycotting U.S. partners, Friedman writes. By making universities ‘prove a negative’ to avoid getting sued, the bill will force them into ‘prioritizing maximal engagement’ with those partners, she adds. In other words, the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act would create a kind of affirmative action for foreign nations.

And the congressional report attached to the bill is an all-out attack on Americans’ constitutional right to withhold their money. It argues that the First Amendment ‘protected the expressive activities accompanying a boycott, not the commercial decision itself to refuse to do business with a particular entity.’ Friedman calls it ‘an alarming and novel interpretation of the Supreme Court’s prior decisions,’ which ‘renders the whole notion of a ‘right to boycott’ meaningless, with alarming implications going far beyond Israel-Palestine issues.’…

“Friedman, Nadler, and J Street also pointed out that the bill’s definition of ‘Israel’ would seem to include Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, making selective boycotts of a specific Israeli policy illegal. And that isn’t a theoretical concern. When the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s announced in 2021 that it would pull out of the settlements while continuing to do business inside Israel proper, several states punished Ben & Jerry’s under their own state-level anti-boycott laws…”

[snip]

“‘The road to erasing [the] US right to free speech/protest of ANYTHING in the US is quite literally being paved with laws to protect/promote Greater Israel/Israeli impunity,’ Friedman writes.”

“‘Now that there’s a sea change in America on Israel amid growing pushback to Trump’s crackdown on free speech and activism, we’re seeing more grassroots efforts to roll back structural obstacles to advancing Palestinian rights and the right to protest and organize,’ said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.”

“NOT SO FAST: Last week in this space, we reported that a new Senate bill, the Jewish American Security Act, had been amended before introduction to remove language codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which considers much criticism of Israel to be antisemitic. We suggested that the bill as it stands would not push forward the longstanding Jewish establishment goal of enshrining IHRA in federal law. Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and an experienced tracker of Hill legislation related to Israel/Palestine and antisemitism, disagrees with our analysis. In her legislative round-up last week, Friedman wrote that the language on IHRA that was removed from the bill was immaterial, given that the bill still cites President Trump’s 2019 executive order endorsing IHRA. ‘Absent an affirmative repudiation of the IHRA definition and/or the articulation of a clear alternative definition—something the forces behind this bill would never accept—any antisemitism legislation adopted under the Trump administration will, first and foremost, codify into law and expand enforcement of the IHRA definition,’ Friedman told Jewish Currents today. ‘Removal of explicit references to the IHRA definition from the bill is performative—it is about appearances, not impact. Doing so did little more than offer a pretext for some who are ostensibly concerned about that definition to demonstrate they can be part of a big tent solution.’”

“The website for the expo includes a reference to Gush Etzion, a cluster of some 20 settlements in the West Bank, southeast of Jerusalem, that are considered illegal under international law. Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said the inclusion of Gush Etzion was a telling reminder of the claim made on all of the Occupied Territories by the pro-settlement movement. ‘Gush Etzion is the Israeli term for an area of the West Bank located south of Jerusalem on which, under international law, all Israeli construction, all Israeli communities are considered illegal under international law,’ Friedman said. ‘The pro-settlement movement around the world, and most Israelis, do not make any distinction between Israel and the West Bank. The idea is that all of this is Eretz Yisrael’ — Hebrew for ‘the land of Israel’ — ‘and it belongs to the Jews because God gave it to them.’”

“‘The entire ‘speak-no-criticism-of-Israel’ industry is erupting in outrage and demanding retribution for a history professor’s speech at the UMich graduation,’ said Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, who added that those seeking to discipline Peterson were effectively making a ‘demand for a complete Israel-exception to free speech.’”

“What makes this difficult to navigate is the concern for antisemitism and the ongoing discussion around our current definitions. The conversation and strategy for addressing Israel’s war crimes is complicated by bad-faith criticism on the Right and the prevailing definition of antisemitism, as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism has been adopted by 35 U.S. states. Writing for Jewish Currents in 2020, Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, observed that parts of the IHRA definition conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel and opposition to Zionism. ‘There exists today a veritable cottage industry of organizations dedicated to promoting the IHRA definition as a legally-mandated litmus test, designed to delegitimize if not criminalize criticism and activism on Israel, and especially boycotts.’ This conflation is not only inaccurate but also harmful to Jews, since it can restrict their freedom to criticize the state of Israel when they believe such criticism is necessary.”

“Mr Malinowski was seen by many as relatively moderate on Israel. ‘They are being absolutists and it’s backfiring,’ says Matt Bennett of Third Way, a think-tank. Top Democrats are swearing off AIPAC money. None of this appears to faze the group. In a social-media post celebrating its victories in Illinois, it declared that ‘being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics’. If that were so, says Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, another think-tank, it would not shy away from making that case to voters. AIPAC says that “like many groups” it will “continue to use different tools to engage in races this cycle”. But its use of front groups places it alongside industries such as oil, tobacco and crypto, which have deployed similar tactics. The added risk for AIPAC is that this approach may reinforce antisemitic tropes about covert influence over policymaking—at a time when such views are already gaining ground.”

“In New Jersey, AIPAC’s super PAC spent heavily against Tom Malinowski in a Democratic primary. According to The New York Times, the move drew more public attention to AIPAC’s influence than intended. Former NJ Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer said the spending left a ‘sour taste’ among residents. Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, cautioned that rejecting AIPAC alone may not be enough: ‘It’s unclear if [candidates] will keep that standard by rejecting support from other organizations — chiefly but not limited to Democratic Majority for Israel.'”