In 2014, opponents of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel began promoting legislation in various U.S. states denouncing the BDS movement. In 2015, these efforts shifted/expanded to mirror efforts in the U.S. Congress to hijack concerns about BDS against Israel in order to pass legislation mandating that Israeli settlements be treated, in effect, as part of sovereign Israel.

Starting in 2016, through the present, these efforts are delivering results, with more and more states adopting patently unconstitutional legislation — amounting to laws explicitly designed to quash political free speech — requiring the states to boycott, divest from, and sanction companies, contracts, and even individuals that boycott Israel, or in many cases, that boycott settlements and the occupation (even if they don’t boycott Israel itself).

Since the beginning of 2015, I’ve has been tracking these bills/laws — my data is available to the public in a regularly updated table, available here.

In addition, by popular demand I’ve created a new resource – a table tracking state laws that make explicit the conflation between Israel and settlements (by stating that the law applies to Israel and “Israeli controlled territories” or some similar formulation). These laws represent an unequivocal statement by U.S. states that they are viewing settlements as, effectively, part of sovereign Israel. That new table is available here. Last update: November 19, 2021

It is important to note that many of the state laws that do NOT make this conflation explicit achieve the same goal implicitly. That is, the language of the laws is  crafted to ensure that the ban on boycotts, as defined in other terms, applies to both boycotts of Israel and boycotts of settlements (for example, banning the boycott of “a person or an entity based in or doing business with a jurisdiction” with which this state can enjoy open trade.

Questions about this issue or any of the data tables should be directed to: Lara@fmep.org