Florida bills seek to bolster state’s anti-BDS laws

Florida, which has taken a leadership role nationwide in combating the boycott-Israel movement and actions against the Jewish state, took another step in that fight with the introduction of two bills in its state legislature on Feb. 28 intended to beef up existing anti-BDS law.

The bills’ Republican sponsors, Tom Leek, a state senator, and Hillary Cassel, a state representative, announced the bills’ filing last week.

The virtually identically worded Florida Senate Bill 1678 and Florida House of Representatives Bill 1519 would expand the state’s existing anti-BDS law, which focuses on commercial contracts, to include contacts with nonprofits, foreign educational institutions and foreign government funds.

“We must take a firm, resolute stand against hate, not only against those who try to harm Floridians through antisemitic economic boycotts but also in academia, where such rhetoric is beginning to take hold,” Cassel said in a statement.

“House Bill 1519 is a legislative initiative aimed at ensuring Floridians’ taxpayer dollars do not support antisemitic activities in either the commercial or academic sectors,” she added. “Florida is the place where antisemitic discrimination and boycotts of Israel go to die.”

Joseph Sabag, an attorney who led the drafting of America’s first modern anti-BDS law in South Carolina in 2015, and played a key role in ushering in Florida’s first anti-BDS law, passed on Feb. 24, 2016, told JNS that the new bills “significantly expand the scope of the law’s reach. We refer to this as anti-BDS 2.0.”

“The state is confronting boycotts of Israel within academia and within the arts. They’re saying clearly, ‘This is not going to happen on our taxpayers’ dime,'” he said.

“When Cassel said Florida is the place where antisemitic discrimination and boycotts of Israel go to die, that’s a profound statement of public policy. It is really reflective of the mentality of the state’s public policymakers overall,” Sabag said.

The BDS movement has evolved over the last few years and developed new tactics, he noted. The amended law will address those by expanding its scope to include areas, activities and entities that aren’t covered by existing statutes.

Sabag singled out as an example academic boycotts, which have become a bigger problem recently.

“Those boycotts tend to be driven by foreign education institutions and nonprofit entities,” he said, citing Ghent University in Belgium. In May 2024, it announced it was severing collaborations with all Israeli schools and institutions.

“At the same time, many of those European universities have joint programs with American public universities. So they want it both ways. Obviously, the state is not interested in that,” Sabag said.

Florida’s actions are significant as it’s a bellwether for the nation when it comes to anti-BDS legislation, he continued.

“Florida is really the front-line state. Florida is very visible in this area of policy. Here the bar is set. We know that many other states are going to adopt what Florida is doing here as the model for a major round of updates to anti-BDS law that will be rolling through the country in the next three to five years,” Sabag said.

©️JNS