Defeated

HR 336 includes the Combating BDS Act of 2019, an anti-boycott bill that purports to authorize state and local legislation prohibiting state investments in or state contracts with entities that engage in boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns for Palestinian rights. The bill claims that such measures are not preempted by federal law and defines BDS activities to include boycotts of Israel and persons doing business in Israel or its illegal settlements. Several courts, however, have blocked state anti-boycott laws over concerns that they suppress constitutionally protected political expression. The Senate passed an identical version (S 1) in February 2019. House Republicans have made multiple attempts to force a vote on HR 336 to no avail. Previous versions of the Combating BDS Act (HR 2856, S 170, HR 4514, S 2531) failed after activists, media, and civil liberties groups raised constitutional concerns. Related legislation: S 1. 

HRes 72 is a non-binding resolution conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and condemns both. The resolution falsely characterizes boycotts for Palestinian rights as antisemitic, claiming campus advocacy has exposed Jewish students to “rampant anti-Semitism.” The resolution’s preamble lists violent acts of antisemitism committed by white supremacists in Charlottesville and Pittsburgh alongside several clauses attacking critics of Israel and BDS supporters, including Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The resolution cites the IHRA redefinition of antisemitism, though notably excludes its examples related to criticism of Israel.

S 852 is an antisemitism redefinition bill titled the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2019. This bill directs the U.S. Department of Education to consider the definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), including the contemporary examples related to Israel, when investigating complaints of antisemitism on campuses. The IHRA definition and the problematic contemporary examples falsely conflate political criticism of Israel with antisemitism and are so broad and vague they could encompass virtually all criticism of Israel and Israeli government policies. The bill adds no new legal protections for Jewish students, but will likely be used to justify federal investigations into Palestine activism on campuses. Substantially similar versions of this bill were introduced and failed to pass in 2016 (S 10, HR 6421) and 2018 (S 2940, HR 5924). In December 2019, Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO 13899) adopting this distorted definition. Related legislation: HR 4009 (2019).

SRes 120 is a non-binding resolution opposing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights. The resolution mischaracterizes grassroots efforts seeking justice for Palestinians as destructive to peace and accuses the BDS movement of promoting “collective guilt, mass punishment, and group isolation”—charges that human rights bodies have made against Israel for its actual treatment of Palestinians. The United Nations and the ICRC have found that Israel’s 12-year blockade of Gaza constitutes “collective punishment,” and a 2019 U.N. investigation concluded that Israeli forces had killed or gravely injured hundreds of Palestinian civilian protestors, including children, in besieged Gaza during the Great March of Return despite the fact that they posed no imminent threat. Related legislation: HRes 246.

HRes 496 is a non-binding resolution that affirms the constitutionally protected right to boycott for civil and human rights. The resolution emphasizes the long history of the use by Americans of boycotts to address injustices and calls on lawmakers and leaders to oppose “unconstitutional legislative efforts to limit the use of boycotts to further civil rights at home and abroad.” This affirmative resolution stands in marked contrast to legislative efforts at the federal and state level to suppress advocacy for Palestinian rights. 

HR 4009 is an antisemitism redefinition bill titled the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2019. This bill directs the U.S. Department of Education to consider the definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), including the contemporary examples related to Israel, when investigating complaints of antisemitism on campuses. The IHRA definition and the problematic contemporary examples falsely conflate political criticism of Israel with antisemitism and are so broad and vague they could encompass virtually all criticism of Israel and Israeli government policies. The bill adds no new legal protections for Jewish students, but will likely be used to justify federal investigations into Palestine activism on campuses. Substantially similar versions of this bill were introduced and failed to pass in 2016 (S 10, HR 6421) and 2018 (S 2940, HR 5924). In December 2019, Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO 13899) adopting this distorted definition. Related legislation: S 852.

HRes 764 is a non-binding resolution expressing support for Trump’s executive order (EO 13899) that adopted a distorted definition of antisemitism. The resolution also references HRes 246, which opposed boycotts for Palestinian rights, as an example of “the United States unwavering support for the Jewish people and strong condemnation of anti-Semitism”—explicitly and falsely linking opposition to boycotts for justice with efforts to combat anti-Jewish hatred.

HRes 782 is a non-binding resolution that encourages public schools to teach about the “historic importance of the creation of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948” as part of broader curricula around the history of antisemitism and the Holocaust. The resolution’s preambulatory language claims that campus advocacy involving boycotts for Palestinian rights has exposed Jewish students to “rampant anti-Semitism.” The resolution makes this claim after ten examples of antisemitic violence, assaults, graffiti, threats, and killings—implicitly and falsely linking acts motivated by anti-Jewish hatred with student advocacy for Palestinian human rights.

In addition, the curricula called for in the resolution would likely not include how at least 75 percent of Palestinians became refugees due to Israel’s founding, and that Israel has since barred them from returning. This act of ethnic cleansing and forced exile is why some activists oppose Israel’s existence – a stance that other legislative efforts seek to paint as antisemitic using a distorted definition of antisemitism.

HR 5595, titled the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, is an anti-boycott bill that criminalizes participation in boycotts of Israel, singling out international efforts to hold Israel accountable for its illegal settlements. The bill amends the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA) of 2018, a successor to the Export Administration Act of 1979 that targeted the Arab League boycott, to prohibit U.S. entities from complying with or supporting boycotts of Israel fostered or imposed by international governmental organizations. This prohibition includes “furnishing information” for the U.N. Human Rights Council’s database of entities contributing to Israel’s illegal settlements. Violations may be punishable by severe fines, up to $300,000 in civil cases and up to $1 million in criminal cases, though the possibility of prison time included in previous iterations has been removed. 

The bill conflates coercive commercial boycotts—like the Arab League boycott where U.S. companies were forced to boycott Israel as a condition of doing business with other foreign parties—with constitutionally protected political expression in support of Palestinian rights. 

Similar bills failed to pass in the last Congress after multiple revisions (S 720, HR 1697).

This non-binding resolution rejects boycotts for Palestinian rights, specifically focusing on university campuses and academic boycotts. It affirms support for Israel and opposes “efforts to assault the legitimacy of Israel as the sovereign homeland of the Jewish people.”