CHICAGO: A US federal court has blocked the state of Texas from enforcing its anti-boycott, divestment and sanctions law against a Palestinian-American contractor who refused to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel.
Rasmy Hassouna, owner of A&R Engineering and Testing, filed the lawsuit in November challenging a Texas law that bars government entities from doing business with companies taking part in the so-called BDS movement against Israel.
US District Court judge Andrew Hanen on Friday issued an injunction prohibiting Texas from enforcing a law that punishes contractors who refuse to sign an affidavit saying that they will not boycott the government of Israel.
Hassouna’s refusal to sign the pledge put his engineering contracts with the city of Houston valued at $150,000 to $300,000 a year at risk.
However, Hanen concluded that Hassouna’s views “are not calculated to undermine the economic interests of Texas or to pose a threat to its Jewish citizens.”
Hassouna argued that he is not antisemitic but is focused only on the acts of the Israeli government.
In his ruling, Hanan said: “The ‘speech’ contemplated by A&R may make some individuals — especially those who identify with Israel — uncomfortable, anxious, or even angry. Nevertheless, speech — even speech that upsets other segments of the population — is protected by the First Amendment unless it escalates into violence and misconduct.”
He added: “Hassouna denies any anti-Jewish motivation and testified that his desire to boycott has nothing to do with Jewish people (American or Israeli) but is only focused on the acts of the Israeli government.”
The judge compared Hassouna’s right to boycott Israel to the rights of African Americans in southern states such as Mississippi where the civil rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, called for boycotts of white businesses over alleged racist policies and practices.
Hanen said that the Texas law “covers speech protected by the First Amendment.”
Government law, he argued, prohibits governments from punishing an individual, including an employee or contractor, on the basis of free speech.
Hassouna’s views “are not calculated to undermine the economic interests of Texas or to pose a threat to its Jewish citizens,” the judge said.
Since 2015, 28 of America’s 50 states have passed laws that restrict the rights of citizens to boycott Israel’s government over its policies toward Palestinians.
Illinois, for example, passed an anti-boycott law in July 2015 prohibiting the state’s pension funds from investing tens of billions of dollars with any company that refuses to sign an affidavit to not boycott Israel.
The BDS movement seeks to force Israel to end what it describes as human rights violations and oppressive policies targeting Palestinian civilians.
Texas approved the anti-boycott law — considered one of the most restrictive — in 2017. The legislation has since faced a string of legal challenges and been rewritten several times.
