Two weeks ago, the State Department informed Israel that the United States would no longer fund research projects in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem with Israeli science and tech institutions, the Times of Israel reports. The move restores the policy that was in place from 1967 until late 2020, when President Trump reversed it, removing existing bans on taxpayer-funded cooperation with entities in those restricted areas.
In fact, as reported in Axios, the decision to reinstate the prior policy banning cooperation with projects in the settlements was made early on in Biden’s presidency. But it came to light only recently when one of the institutions in those areas submitted an application for research funding. Its hand now forced, the State Department re-implemented the prior policy restrictions.
From the State Department spokesperson’s statement to Axios:
“The Department of State recently circulated foreign policy guidance to relevant agencies advising that engaging in bilateral scientific and technological cooperation with Israel” in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights “is inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy.”…The spokesperson said that the U.S. “strongly values scientific and technological cooperation” with Israel and such cooperation continues.”This guidance is simply reflective of the longstanding U.S. position … that the ultimate disposition of the geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after June 5, 1967 is a final status matter and that we are working towards a negotiated two-state solution in which Israel lives in peace and security alongside a viable Palestinian state,” the spokesperson added.
But critics say this “longstanding U.S. position” is nothing less than a U.S. government boycott of Israeli Jews based on where they live. That was Senator Ted Cruz’s take this past Sunday when he blasted the Biden administration for its quiet re-implementation of the pre-Trump era prohibitions:
Joe Biden and Biden administration officials are pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel. Since day one of their administration they have launched campaigns against our Israeli allies that are granular, whole of government, and done in secret.“This new boycott of Israeli Jews is yet another example. The State Department is telling the entire U.S. government not to cooperate with Jews in Judea and Samaria. And of course it was sent to Congress in secret, and only revealed because reporters found out.“The Biden administration defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re discriminating against and banning cooperation with Jews based on where they live.“I will do everything possible to reverse this decision and prohibit such antisemitic discrimination by the U.S. government in the future.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman agrees. Friedman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the Trump Administration agreement removing the barriers to cooperation with research entities in the settlements. “But apparently that’s now over as the Biden Administration has restored the boycott,” Friedman tweeted on Sunday:
Make no mistake. The United States, by this action, is embracing the BDS Movement, violating a binding bilateral agreement with Israel, and creating a lose/lose dynamic whereby the people of the region — Israelis and Palestinians — will lose the most.
We knew something like this was going to happen. We just didn’t know it would happen this fast. The Biden administration’s “whole of government” ban on funding research entities in the settlements, regardless of what they call it, creates a government-sponsored boycott of those entities. And it comes just weeks after another newly minted “whole of government” policy: the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism covered here.
The problem with the new White House strategy, we said then, is that it equivocates on its mission. The plan leaves “antisemitism” so vaguely defined that we wondered if it would become a pretext for permitting it instead of a plan for stopping it. Perversely, it could actually enable the antisemitism it promised to oppose.
Because today’s antisemitism doesn’t fit the old definitions. It finds expression in anti-Zionism—campaigns to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel (BDS); accusations of apartheid against Israel; and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
You won’t find the term “boycott” anywhere in the President’s new plan. Now we know why.
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