Boycott Bill: Labelling Critics of ‘Israel’ Antisemitic A Dangerous Road
By Staff, Agencies
The UK government is taking a “dangerous road” by labelling critics of Israel’s human rights record as antisemitic, a parliamentary committee examining a bill that would ban public bodies from supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement [BDS] movement has been told.
Giving evidence on Thursday, human rights and environment advocates warned that the proposed legislation could also inhibit divestment from arms companies supplying Gulf states accused of war crimes, and from state-backed fossil fuel companies.
But the committee also heard from newspaper columnist Melanie Phillips who told MPs that a clause in the bill specifically preventing public bodies from supporting boycotts aimed at “Israel” was necessary because of the “uniquely evil impulse” of BDS.
The Economic Activity of Public Bodies [Overseas Matters] Bill aims to prohibit public bodies, including local councils, universities and public sector pension funds, from making procurement and investment decisions “influenced by political or moral disapproval of foreign state conduct”.
Critics of the bill warn it risks inflaming community tensions by marginalizing Palestinians and pro-Palestinian advocacy organizations campaigning against “Israeli” human rights abuses.
Giving evidence on Thursday, Peter Frankental of Amnesty International linked attempts by the government to connect Palestinian activism and BDS to antisemitism to a broader stigmatization of human rights advocacy worldwide.
Frankental told MPs: “There is no reason in principle why any human rights advocate should not advocate for the human rights of Palestinians, or criticize the human rights record of ‘Israel’, and they should not be tarred with the brush of racism, of antisemitism. That is a very dangerous road.”
Frankental questioned whether campaigners drawing attention to violations against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar would be accused of being anti-Buddhist, or whether critics of the Indian government would face accusations of being anti-Hindu.
Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, said the bill would restrict the ability of public bodies to carry out their own due diligence in line with their responsibilities to adhere with international law and UN human rights commitments.
“Something that is extremely pernicious with the bill is the fact that what it is going to do is have a significant chilling effect on public bodies. It runs a coach and horses through ESG [environment, social and governance] and human rights due diligence,” she said.
Ahmed added that, in decades working as a lawyer, she had “never read a piece of legislation that is as badly worded as this”.
She said the bill, if passed into law, would prevent public bodies from divesting from arms companies selling weapons to countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over concerns they might be used to commit war crimes in Yemen.
The bill was also criticized by Dave Timms, head of political affairs at environmental campaign organization Friends of the Earth, who said it could also block public bodies from divesting from fossil fuel companies such as Saudi Arabia's Aramco.
“This is the state impinging on the activities of civil society organizations who are trying to achieve meaningful social change,” he said, noting that “This is a direct attack on the ability of civil society to go about the activities that we would consider to be legitimate.”
