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As though ACLU didn't already have enough lawsuits going. But this takes the cake. Although anti-BDS legislation has been introduced several times in Congress but never got off the ground because of the First Amendment barrier. Similar measures pending in Europe too.  The good news here is that Israel's right-wing government is getting desperate. The BDS movement is mushrooming globally and routinely is achieving success in convincing companies (and recording artists, etc.) to pull out of Israel. More so in Europe, but BDS is off to a great start in the U.S. Kerry warned Netanyahu before the latter blew up the last round of negotations with the Palestinians that BDS would soon make it politically impossible for the U.S. to continue providing cover for Israel on the U.N. Security Council. There's a big shift of public opinion in the U.S. about Israel's abuse of Palestinians well under way. It won't be long before introducing Israel Lobby measures in Congress will stop happening. 

The Palestine BDS Movement drew economic blood According to the NYT, SodaStream's revenues fell so far that its books needed red ink and the Israeli government chipped in $20 million to move SodaStream out of the Occupied Territories. 

Note carefully that theBDS demonstrators blocking the Israeli ship from unloading included the Longshoreman and Warehouse Union. Same in Los Angeles a couple of days ago. The significance: During the South African apartied BDS movement, the involvement of the same union was the straw that broke South Africa's back and caused the U.S. government, the last nation still supporting South Africa, to drop its support. Very quickly, South Africa had a new government with Nelson Mandela as President. This may not be that critical added straw this time around, but BDS is getting very near critical mass.  

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement went over the top in the U.S. during 2015. This article lists major victories as well as the impact of BDS on the Israeli economy, which is shrinking rapidly because of BDS. Notably, major companies are avoiding new business initiatives in Israel because of BDS and Moody's has warned that further BDS efforts may make Israel a very poor place for multinationals to do business.    

The times they are a changin'.

This is the largest part of the real back story on John Kerry's feverish effort to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine apartheid problem. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement against Israel is growing rapidly, nearly doubling the rate of growth of the former BDS movement that successfully ended apartheid government of South Africa.   Israel has become a pariah state diplomatically because of its war crimes against Palestinians and because of BDS, is increasingly becoming a pariah state economically. At the same time, Israel has illegally colonized Palestine to the extent that a 2-state solution is all but impossible, meaning that the most likely outcome is that Israel will cease being the "Jewish State" and be forced to grant equality to Palestinians as well in a new secular government. The situation became all the more dire for Israel as the "Jewish State" when the U.N. General Assembly granted Palestine observer state status, opening the way for Palestine to, e.g., pursue criminal prosecution of Israeli leaders for war crimes before the International Criminal Court.  That has dramatically increased the Palestinian Authority's leverage in negotiations. Kerry is on a rescue mission to see if he can coerce the Palestinian Authority to cede sufficient land and powers to Israel to make a 2-state solution credible. Kerry's leverage is that the U.S. has been underwriting the Palestinian Authority's expenses and can threaten to withdraw the financial support.  All of which brings it down to the question of Palestinian Authority leadership corruption. If the PA stands tall and refuses to accept Kerry's ridiculous demands, there will almost certainly be no 2-state solution, ever, because Israel continues to colonize Palestine and has locked up most of Palestine's water resources. Further colonization means still less water for an "independent" Palestine state. The Palestine Authority, on the other hand, suffered f

Shades of Fallujah. And the not-so-mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome" in veterans of war in Iraq. 

A sign that BDS is beginning to make Israeli government truly worried about economic impacts, the Adelson/Saban big donations for anti-BDS work on U.S. college campuses. 

Hillary isn't giving the swing vote much incentive to vote for her other than being female and having name familiarity.

So much for freedom of speech and association in Israel. 

Going full-bore Neocon and pro-Israel is a gamble for Hillary. She may figure that she has nothing to lose by this gambit because the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party is firmly lined up behind Bernie Sanders. In the last few years, support for Palestinians and objections to neocon pro-Israeli policies have become standard fare among Progressives. But the risk for Hillary is that Progressive viewpoints affect the views of other Democrats. The wild card factor is the extent to which that expansion beyond Progressivism will happen between now and the various primary election dates. And it truly is a wild card; support for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement is mushrooming exponentially in the U.S. Hillary has taken a firm position that she is against BDS and intends if elected to crack down on BDS in the U.S. (That's a vividly unconstitutional position under the FIrst Amendment.)  So even were Hillary to squeak by in 2016, her anti-BDS rhetoric in this election season may well cost her re-election in 2020. 

Note that this article's original is behind a paywall in Haaretz, one of Israel's market-leading newspapers.  There can be no questioning of the facts that: [i] the Palestinian Boycott, Divesment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement is rapidly gaining strength globally; and [ii] that factor weighs heavily in the negotiations between Israel and Palestine for a two-state solution. Although not bluntly stated, the BSD movement's path runs directly to a single-state solution that would sweep Israel's present right-wing government from power and result in a secular state rather than a "Jewish state." And the E.U., Israel's largest export market, has promised to go even farther in sanctioning Israel than the considerable distance it has already gone if the negotiations do not result in a two state solution. Labeling all products produced wholly or in part in Israel-occupied Palestine territory is among the mildest of sanctions under discussion, a measure already adopted in two E.U. nations. The BSD Movement's success has also been marked by Israel attaining the pariah state status previously experienced by South Africa. Only the U.S., Canada, and a half-dozen or so tiny island nations closely aligned with the U.S. still vote in favor of Israel at the U.N. For example, the vote on granting Palestine U.N. observer state status was 138-9, with 41 abstentions.  The prospect of an end to the non-secular Jewish state has enormous ramifications for U.S. foreign policy, not the least of which is the influence of the Israel lobby in the U.S. that has thus far led the U.S. to three Treasury-draining wars in Southwest Asia and Northern Africa and host of minor military actions in other area nations, as well as a near-war in Syria, averted mainly via Russian diplomacy that outfoxed Secretary of State John Kerry. Time will tell whether the diplomatic outreach by Iran will succeed in averting war with the greatest military power remaining in the Mideast after Israel itself. "Protectin

This isn't a radical change in U.S. foreign policy. The legislation itself is likely unconstitutional; boycott, divestment, and sanctions movements are protected by the First Amendment. And the U.S. violates several treaties by permitting the import of goods from Israeli settlements in Palestine and by permitting U.S. companies to profit from the Israeli occupation. The occupation itself is a war crime and crime against humanity.

So the cure is supposedly "better messaging" rather than substantive reforms in Israel. Anything but behave as a civilized nation.