The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would put federal funding at risk for universities deemed to be boycotting Israel, in the latest move by the American political establishment to shield Israel from accountability, even as it targets speech that critics say no US university has actually engaged in.
The measure, styled the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, passed by a vote of 237 to 169. Introduced by a Republican and a Democrat, it would bar colleges that receive federal funds from taking part in what it calls a "nonexpressive commercial boycott" of Israel, and would force universities to certify annually that they offer academic programs in Israel on the same terms as anywhere else. Critics warn the bill's language is so broad that it could extend anti-boycott protections to Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, effectively compelling US universities not merely to refrain from boycotting Israel but to actively seek out ties with it or risk being branded pro-boycott and stripped of federal aid.
Opponents warned that the legislation is a direct assault on constitutionally protected speech. Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee urged a no vote, arguing it threatens First Amendment rights and targets conduct no American university has actually undertaken. As one Democratic congressman noted during the debate, there has not been a single case of an American college administration adopting the boycott policies the bill describes, not one, leading the minority to dismiss the measure as a "solution in search of a problem." Free-speech advocates cautioned that the bill is part of a wider effort to erase First Amendment protection for the right to boycott altogether, a tactic pioneered in the 38 states that have passed anti-boycott laws since 2015.
The bill does not name the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement outright, but its sponsors made clear that BDS, the grassroots campaign to isolate Israel modeled on the boycott of apartheid South Africa, is the target. Supporters cast Palestine-solidarity activism on campus as antisemitism and "unrest" to be suppressed, framing the boycott of a state committing genocide as discrimination against Jewish students, a conflation long used to silence criticism of Israel.
The vote laid bare the fractures the issue is opening within the Democratic Party. Thirty-three Democrats broke ranks to oppose the bill, while others, including a newly named senior Democrat on the Middle East subcommittee, joined Republicans in supporting it, angering progressives who see the party's leadership as dangerously out of step with its own voters. Only two Republicans opposed the measure. The split reflects a deepening rift between a political class still reflexively committed to defending Israel and a base increasingly repulsed by the genocide in Gaza.
That rift points to the deeper story behind the vote. Across the United States, and especially among young Americans, support for Israel has collapsed as images of the genocide in Gaza reach a generation that overwhelmingly sees the Palestinian cause as a matter of justice. Polls show young Americans, including young Jewish Americans, turning sharply against Israel, campuses have become the center of a mass Palestine-solidarity movement, and candidates who defy the pro-Israel lobby, from Zohran Mamdani in New York to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, have won despite its spending. The ground is shifting decisively beneath the establishment's feet.
Yet the American elite, in Congress, in the party leaderships, and in the donor class, continues to do whatever it takes to defend Israel wherever it can, even at the cost of the constitutional freedoms it claims to champion.
