Illinois Must Stand Firm Against BDS

A recent Mondoweiss article attempts to frame the effort to repeal Illinois’ anti-BDS law as a civil rights campaign and even suggests it could become a national model. That framing is deeply misleading.

This debate is not about silencing anyone. It is about whether Illinois should allow public pension dollars to be invested in companies that participate in discriminatory boycotts targeting the world’s only Jewish state.

Illinois’ anti-BDS law was not passed in the shadows. It was not a partisan stunt. It passed in 2015 with overwhelming bipartisan support, unanimously in both chambers. That should matter. At a time when very little unites elected officials across party lines, Illinois Democrats and Republicans came together around a basic principle: taxpayer-backed pension funds should not be used to support discriminatory campaigns against Israel.

The current repeal effort, HB 2723, would weaken Illinois’ ability to ensure that state investments are not entangled with anti-Israel discrimination. Supporters of repeal want to call this a free speech issue. It is not.

No individual in Illinois is prohibited from criticizing........

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