Settlement boycott on the Supreme Court Agenda
The following article appeared on Wednesday, August 21, 2013, in the op-ed section of the Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Supreme-Court-to-rule-on-legality-of-settlement-boycott-323718
Israeli settlement on the West Bank, always a hot issue, seems to have heated up even more in recent weeks. The Netanyahu government’s decision to authorize 1,200 new housing units precipitated a predictable crisis in the just-resumed talks with the Palestinians. And since the European Union put down a collective foot, no Israeli academic institute located or active in a settlement would be eligible to get European grants. Should the government of Israel fail to provide a written acknowledgement of these terms, all of our country’s universities and research institutes stand to lose hundreds of millions of euros in grants, a considerable blow to Israeli science and academia.
Meanwhile, the same issue is soon due to figure prominently on the agenda from a different angle – as a weighty matter of Israeli law. The Supreme Court secretariat informed various appellants and litigants that on February 16, 2014, a special ninejudge panel headed by Supreme Court president Asher Grunis will deliberate on the constitutionality of the socalled “Boycott Law,” and will address the key question: Is the act of boycotting the settlements located in the territories of “Judea and Samaria” tantamount to “boycotting Israel,” to be punished as such? Undoubtedly, the initiators of the Boycott Law – enacted late at night, at the end of a stormy Knesset debate on July 11, 2011 – meant this question to be answered with a very strong affirmative.
Some of these initiators explicitly stated that they were particularly targeting the Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc) movement (of which I happen to be a member).
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