Illinois Made It Illegal to Boycott Israel

How you can help Illinois rectify a Constitutionally indefensible error committed by 39 states, and repeal its anti-BDS legislation

Imagine this: Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans pass a law making it illegal to criticize the United States government. Or worse, they pass a law making it illegal to criticize or boycott Russia for their war on Ukraine. Or yet worse—Trump and MAGA politicians decide that because Saudi Arabia is our ally, it is now illegal to criticize or boycott Saudi Arabia under punishment of fine.

What First Amendment loving free speech supporting person would accept this?

Indeed, we would all resoundingly reject such absurd legislation. Yet, in 2015, Illinois became the first state in the country to pass an anti-BDS law, penalizing companies that refuse to do business with Israel or in the occupied West Bank. And 38 more states have since followed suit. Now, for the first time, we have the opportunity to right this historic wrong. Here’s how you can help. Let’s Address This.

Photo: NY Times

BDS and the BIG Problem With Anti-BDS Laws

BDS stands for Boycott, Divest, and Sanction. Officially launched in the early 2000s, the BDS movement is a peaceful, Palestinian-led movement to boycott the Israeli government for its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, illegal blockades of goods into Palestine, and more recently, its genocide upon Palestinians in Gaza. BDS activists often compare their peaceful resistance to the Israeli Government to Nelson Mandela’s peaceful resistance to apartheid South Africa. And like the resistance to South African apartheid, the BDS movement is an interfaith, interracial, and international movement for justice comprised of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and people of all faiths and no faith.

At its core, the BDS is a non-violent peaceful movement. It is therefore by default protected free speech as enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Meanwhile, under anti-BDS laws, businesses that take a moral stance—or even make a purely financial decision—to avoid doing business with Israel, the Illinois state pension funds are forced to divest from those companies. No other country enjoys this kind of statutory protection. Illinois does not mandate pension fund investment in China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, or any other nation-state. Only Israel.

That should immediately raise constitutional alarms.

Yet, those who support Israel’s illegal occupation in the West Bank have not mended their ways. Instead, they have successfully lobbied 39 states to pass “anti-BDS laws,” which criminalize economic boycotts of the State of Israel. Here’s a post from the Israeli American Council boasting about these restrictions.

The caption on the above post made on Facebook brags:

IAC For Action’s advocacy has helped 39 states pass anti-BDS laws, creating an economic Iron Dome to protect businesses from antisemitic discrimination.

Think about this—rather than stopping their illegal behavior, the anti-BDS movement is criminalizing legal behavior. This makes no sense.

As I’ve written many times before, States do not have rights. Governments do not have rights. People have rights. And among the most fundamental of those rights is the right to engage in political boycotts, to criticize governments, and to organize collective economic action in pursuit of justice.

Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that boycotts are protected speech under the First Amendment. Economic activism is not coercion; it is expression. Indeed, this is not a red verses blue issue. Public opinion has long reflected broad, bipartisan opposition to laws that punish boycott activity, with polling showing majorities of both Republicans and Democrats rejecting anti-BDS legislation as a violation of free speech rights. Whether one supports BDS or opposes it is irrelevant to the constitutional principle at stake. The government cannot and must not be allowed to punish individuals or companies for engaging in lawful, protected, and peaceful speech.

And now, we have a chance to act to right this wrong.

How Did This Happen

The origins of these laws are not accidental. In 2014, then–Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government allocated approximately $25 million to launch a global campaign to combat the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement through coordinated legislative efforts. Within a year, in 2015, Illinois passed its anti-BDS law under Governor Bruce Rauner. At the time, Rauner’s chief of staff was a vocal supporter of these measures and is now affiliated with a Trump-linked pro-Israel policy institute.

This timeline is not speculation. It reflects how foreign policy interests and domestic political actors converged to advance legislation that restricts Americans’ constitutional rights.

How We Right This Wrong

For the first time since Illinois’ anti-BDS law passed more than a decade ago, Illinoisans have an opportunity to correct this injustice.

The Illinois Human Rights Advocacy Protection Act (HRAPA) would repeal the state’s anti-BDS law. The bill has been assigned to the House Committee on International Relations, Tourism, and Trade, and a hearing is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. on February 19. This is moving quickly, and there are undoubtedly legislators who hope that supporters of free speech will not mobilize in time.

They are mistaken.

Witness slips are critically important in the committee hearing process. We have already surpassed 3,000 supporters—an unprecedented groundswell of Illinoisans standing up for First Amendment rights. Because of that momentum, our goal is 10,000 witness slips before the Wednesday, February 18 deadline.

That surge in support is being actively and aggressively contested. People who oppose free speech are mobilizing. If constitutional rights are going to prevail, those who defend them must outnumber them.

If you are in Illinois, you can submit a witness slip here: https://www.ilchr.org/slips

What exactly is a witness slip? As explained by the Illinois Ass’n Chiefs of Police:

Witness slips are a vital piece of the legislative process. Before a bill is heard in committee, the chairperson will read who has submitted witness slips and whether they support or oppose a bill. This helps inform legislators as to where Illinoisans and organizations stand, allowing legislators to make informed decisions when voting. As we head into this year’s legislative session, we will urge you to file witness slips for our priority issues.

Take a few minutes to complete the process. Then share the link with your personal and organizational networks. Encourage others to act immediately. We are on a tight timeline, and urgency matters.

This is about more than BDS. It is about whether a state government can punish political expression simply because it finds that expression inconvenient. It is about whether we defend free speech consistently—or only when it benefits us.

We cannot claim outrage when MAGA politicians and Donald Trump restrict speech, intimidate critics, or weaponize state power against dissenters—if we remain silent when similar tactics are deployed elsewhere. Once the government is empowered to decide which peaceful boycotts are permissible and which are punishable, no movement is safe.

Conclusion

Return for a moment to the thought experiment at the top of this article.

We agree it is untenable to criminalize criticism or peaceful boycott of Pakistan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia—and that same principle must apply to Israel. Criticizing a government’s policies is not an attack on a people or a religion. It is core democratic discourse. Likewise, choosing not to do business with a government or with entities tied to government policy is a protected form of political expression. We may boycott for moral reasons, financial reasons, or no reason at all. Our Constitution does not condition speech protections on whether lawmakers approve of the viewpoint.

Thus, the absurdity of anti-BDS laws lie precisely in this inversion of values: they protect a state from criticism by penalizing people for expressing it. That is not how constitutional democracies function. Illinois was the first state to pass anti-BDS legislation. We now have the chance to make history again—by becoming the first state to repeal one.

If you believe in the First Amendment, if you believe that governments must tolerate criticism rather than criminalize it, and if you believe that political boycotts are a legitimate tool of democratic accountability, then act now.

Submit your witness slip. Share the link. Contact your legislators. Make clear that protecting a foreign state from criticism is not the role of Illinois government, and that punishing political expression is incompatible with constitutional democracy.

This is our opportunity to rebuke an unjust law and reaffirm a foundational principle: governments are accountable to people, not shielded from them.