To the Editor:
Wisconsin is one of dozens of states with an anti-boycott law. Wisconsin Act 248 has two parts. It bars state and local governments from adopting boycott policies targeting Israel, and it requires companies seeking state contracts of $100,000 or more to certify that they are not participating in a boycott of Israel.
These laws are significant in light of recent escalations by militant West Bank settlers, who are conducting a campaign of killing, arson and intimidation against Palestinians in order to expel them from their land.
Notably, in 2021, two former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa, Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel, co-authored an op-ed concluding that Israel has become an apartheid state.
They cited the two-tiered legal system in the West Bank, illegal settlements, the demolition of homes, and the forcing of Palestinians to live on smaller and smaller tracts of land.
For these former ambassadors, this forced displacement is reminiscent of the bantustan project in apartheid South Africa, in which large numbers of Black South Africans were forcibly relocated onto enclaves called homelands.
They conclude: “Just as the world joined the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, it is time for the world to take decisive diplomatic action in our case as well and work towards building a future of equality, dignity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”
Repealing Act 248 would restore neutrality to public contracting and affirm that Wisconsin will not punish those who use nonviolent economic pressure to oppose violence, discrimination, and dispossession.
—Terry Hanson
Grafton, Wis.