Texas being sued for loving Israhell

[yankeedoodle]

Texas school pathologist files lawsuit after being denied work for refusing to sign pro-Israel oath
https://www.rt.com/usa/446707-employee-fired-israel-oath-texas/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_campaign=chrome

A Texas elementary school speech pathologist has filed a federal lawsuit after her school district refused to renew her contract unless she signed a pro-Israel oath.

Bahia Amawi has worked for the Pflugerville Independent School District since 2009 on a contract basis. Each year when it came to the time to renew her contract, the school district did so. Amawi always signed the correct documents, and had another year of guaranteed employment.

But this year, in August, there was a new addition to the contract papers. That addition was an oath which Amawi was being asked to sign, promising that she "will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract" and will refrain from any action "that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israel-controlled territory."

That was a problem for Amawi, who, along with her family, refrains from buying goods from Israeli companies in support of the global boycott to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

But aside from that, Amawi noted that the very fact that this was the only oath she was being asked to sign – and it was to do with Israel – was extremely strange.

"It's baffling that they can throw this down our throats, and decide to protect another country's economy versus protecting our constitutional rights," Amawi, who was born in Austria and is of Palestinian descent, told The Intercept.

She said it was entirely out of the question to sign such an oath, as it would not only be doing Palestinians a disservice, but also Americans.

"I couldn't in good conscience do that. If I did, I would not only be betraying Palestinians suffering under an occupation that I believe is unjust...but I'd also be betraying my fellow Americans by enabling violations of our constitutional rights to free speech and to protest peacefully," said Amawi, who has lived in America for the last 30 years and is a US citizen.

Additionally, the disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired students of Pflugerville Independent School District are also losing out. Those who speak Arabic are at a particular disadvantage, as Amawi says she is the only certified child's speech pathologist in the district that speaks the language.

Amawi's attorney has filed a lawsuit, alleging a violation of her First Amendment right of free speech.

The oath was produced under a pro-Israel Texas state law enacted on May 2, 2017, which bans state agencies from working with contractors who boycott Israel. When the bill was signed into law by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, he said that "any anti-Israel policy is an anti-Texas policy."

The law is incredibly far-reaching, and meant that some Hurricane Harvey victims were told they could only receive state disaster relief if they signed the same kind of pro-Israel oath. The author of the bill, State Rep. Phil King, later said that its application to hurricane assistance was a "misunderstanding."

However, Texas isn't alone in requiring its contractors not to boycott Israel. A total of 26 states have enacted such laws, and similar bills are pending in 13 other states.

The state laws come as the Trump administration has repeatedly expressed its steadfast support for Israel, opting to recognize Jerusalem as the country's capital last year. The move led to global protests and condemnation from other UN member states.

[maz]

[tweet]1074729761363120129[/tweet]

[maz]

Read the comments from  the Twitter thread

[yankeedoodle]

A 3-minute interview with the teacher is at this link:  http://whtt.org/2018/12/20/texas-fires-speech-therapist-for-not-signing-the-israel-loyalty-oath

Rick Sanchez, who was fired from CNN for "controversial comments" about jews https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rick+sanchez+cnn&atb=v116-4_f&ia=web now works for RT-America, and his 4-1/2 minute commentary about this loyalty oath to Israhell is at this link: 
http://whtt.org/2018/12/20/will-americans-have-to-take-loyalty-oath-to-israel-instead-of-u-s

[yankeedoodle]

This is a different case, but the same problem in Texas.

ACLU OF TEXAS FILES FIRST AMENDMENT CHALLENGE TO ANTI-BOYCOTT LAW
https://www.aclutx.org/en/press-releases/aclu-texas-files-first-amendment-challenge-anti-boycott-law?fbclid=IwAR2JYxB5f3J_IWDBLboYq8fx7gMW55KGa_JUBiny_gzn8XcAjd-xw3Qle8c

AUSTIN – The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas today filed a lawsuit challenging a state law that requires government contractors to certify that they are not engaged in boycotts of Israel or territories controlled by Israel. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of four Texans, argues that the law, HB 89, which went into effect last year, violates the First Amendment's protection against government intrusion into political speech.

"This lawsuit is about fundamental First Amendment rights, which protect us all from having the government use its power to force us to choose one side or another in a public debate,"said Edgar Saldivar, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas. "Whatever you may think about boycotts of Israel, the bottom line is that political boycotts are a legitimate form of nonviolent protest. The state cannot use the contracting process as an ideological litmus test or to tell people what kind of causes they may or may not support."

The lawsuit is brought on behalf of four people who were forced under the law to choose between signing the certification or forgoing professional opportunities and losing income: John Pluecker, a freelance writer who lost two service contracts from the University of Houston; George Hale, a reporter for KETR who was forced to sign the certification against his conscience in order to keep his job; Obinna Dennar, a Ph.D. candidate at Rice University, who was forced to forfeit payment for judging at a debate tournament; and Zachary Abdelhadi, a student at Texas State University, who has had to forego opportunities to judge high school debate tournaments.

"The constitution clearly prohibits the government from suppressing participation in political boycotts," said Brian Hauss, staff attorney for the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology project. "This misguided law seeks to undermine a form of protected expression that has been a part of our nation's constitutional tradition since the founding."

Since 2017, the ACLU has successfully blocked anti-boycott state laws in Kansas and Arizona. In January 2018, a federal district court preliminarily enjoined an anti-boycott state law in Kansas, holding that the First Amendment protects citizens' right to "band together" and "express collectively their dissatisfaction with the injustice and violence they perceive, as experienced both by Palestinians and Israeli citizens." In September, a district court joined a similar anti-boycott law in Arizona.

The ACLU takes no position on campaigns to boycott Israel or any other foreign country, but it has long defended the First Amendment right to participate in political boycotts.

The lawsuit filed today seeks an order from the court declaring the law unconstitutional and enjoining the enforcement of the law's certification requirement. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from the ACLU of Texas, the ACLU Speech Privacy & Technology Project, and Kevin Dubose of Alexander Dubose Jefferson & Townsend LLP in Houston.

[yankeedoodle]

Right under the noses of all the jews in Hollyweird, the Los Angeles Times editorializes against Israhell.

Want to boycott Israel? The 1st Amendment allows it — but Texas doesn't
By THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD
DEC 22, 2018
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bds-boycott-texas-20181222-story.html

Bahia Amawi worked for nine years as a speech pathologist for a Texas school district. But in September, when it came time to renew her contract for the coming year, she was asked — under the provisions of a recent state law — to affirm that she does not and would not boycott Israel.

That put her in a tough position. As an American of Palestinian descent, she does try to avoid buying products from Israel. So she declined to sign the contract. And she lost her job.

That is as ludicrous as it is un-American. Regardless of one's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, it should be clear that a U.S. citizen like Amawi has a right to make choices for herself about what kind of hummus or olive oil she does or does not want to buy, and about what kind of political statements she wants to make through her purchases.

The effort to legislate the boycott out of existence is wrongheaded and misguided.

"This is a personal choice," she told reporters — and she's absolutely right.

Over the years, some people have boycotted grapes and lettuce to protest the treatment of farmworkers; others refused to travel to South Africa at the height of apartheid. Today, some people won't invest in cigarette companies or arms manufacturers; others won't buy from Nike because of its support for Colin Kaepernick.

As the Supreme Court has recognized, boycotts are a form of speech protected under the Constitution. That protection exists so that government cannot penalize people like Amawi because their opinions are out of step with those of the state.

The Texas law was passed in 2017 by the Republican-controlled state Legislature. It bars governmental entities from contracting with companies that boycott Israel, apparently to prevent state dollars from somehow being used to support a sanctions movement they disparage. That's problematic on its own. But to make matters worse, "company" is defined broadly to include individual "sole proprietorship" contractors such as Amawi.

Had she signed the contract, she would have been promising not to engage in any action "intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israel-controlled territory." Lawmakers may have been trying to deter the state's suppliers from taking a corporate stance against Israel, but there's nothing in the language of the law suggesting that it does not cover a contractor's personal behavior as well.

Instead of signing, she is now suing the school district and the Texas attorney general, arguing that the law violates the 1st Amendment's protections on political speech and political advocacy. We hope her challenge is successful.

The Texas law is part of a bigger worldwide effort to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The highly controversial BDS campaign calls on people and companies to boycott Israel until that country ends its occupation of "all Arab lands," ensures equal legal rights for its Arab citizens and accepts the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the former homes of their families in Israel. Some supporters of BDS accept the idea of a "two-state solution." Others don't, preferring a single-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians live together in one land.

Although BDS has not so far inflicted substantial damage on the Israeli economy, the movement's increasingly high profile — especially on some college campuses — has alarmed Israelis and their supporters in the United States.

Laws like the one in Texas are one response. According to Palestine Legal, a group that advocates for Palestinian causes, 26 states in the U.S. have passed some type of anti-Israel boycott legislation. (Another response is the effort to conflate anti-Zionist speech — that is, speech arguing against the state of Israel — with anti-Semitism; among others, the U.S. State Department has taken positions that move down this troubling path.)

It is understandable that many people would object to the BDS movement, worrying that it demonizes Israel and that it will weaken the country, which enjoys strong support in the United States. But the effort to legislate the boycott out of existence is wrongheaded and misguided.

Politicians are entitled to denounce BDS, if they choose to. But they must not take actions that infringe the free speech rights of their constituents. The 1st Amendment exists to protect all points of view — including yours, but also those of the people you disagree with. At the end of the day, that benefits us all.

[yankeedoodle]

Arkansas is being sued, also, for loving Israhell.

Arkansas law requiring state contractors pledge not to boycott Israel has court challenge
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/arkansas-law-requiring-state-contractors-pledge-not-boycott-israel-has-n954986

https://twitter.com/AymanM/status/1082102244139515904

[yankeedoodle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qK1p2qxV7M