Hogan bans companies doing business with Md. from actions against Israel

Gov. Larry Hogan, with Secretary of State John C. Wobensmith, signs an executive order prohibiting companies that contract with Maryland from engaging in boycotts, divestment or sanctions against Israel. (Bryan P. Sears)

ANNAPOLIS — Companies that do business with the Maryland state government will not be able to participate in any boycott, divestment or sanctions against Israel under an executive order signed Monday by Gov. Larry Hogan.

The order, which comes months after a bill that sought to take the same actions died in the legislature, also recommends that the state pension system pull investments from companies that participate in what is commonly called the “BDS movement” (boycotts, divestment, sanctions).

Hogan, in making the announcement, said efforts to engage in economic sanctions against Israel are discriminatory and fly in the face of the state’s relationship with Israel.

“Boycotts of people or entities because of their Israeli national origin undermines the declaration of cooperation that exists between Maryland and the nation of Israel,” Hogan said. “Israel is a robust democracy with many rights and freedoms that don’t exist in neighboring countries or across much of the world.”

Hogan called such boycotts discriminatory and said they have the potential to undermine the state’s long-standing cooperation agreement with Israel, signed in 1988, as well as efforts to attract Israeli companies to do business in the state.

Earlier this year Sen. Robert A. “Bobby” Zirkin, D-Baltimore County, and Del. Benjamin F. Kramer, D-Montgomery County, sponsored legislation similar to Hogan’s order which also would have required the state pension system to stop doing business with companies that boycott Israel — the governor can only make a recommendation.

Del. Ben Kramer, D-Montgomery and sponsor of unsuccessful anti-BDS bills last year, praised the governor for signing an executive order Monday and said legislation will likely return in the 2018 session. (Bryan P. Sears)

In 2008 Maryland enacted a law that requires the state pension system to divest in companies that do business in Iran or Sudan. Both Zirkin and Kramer voted for the 2008 law.

Saqib Ali, a Democratic former delegate from Montgomery County and supporter of the Israel boycott movement, said Hogan’s action creates an inconsistency in state policy that is “Islamophobic.”

“There’s no way you can have one set of logic that applies to Israel and a different set of logic that applies to everyone else,” Ali said. “It’s a ridiculous argument.”

The order thrusts Maryland into a complicated and ongoing foreign police dispute in the Middle East.

“The governor’s action today reinforces the relationship Maryland and Israel have,” said Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council. “To make a statement that our tax dollars are not going to go to companies that engage in a discriminatory boycott of Israel is very important to the Jewish community.”

Libit said comparisons of BDS protests to economic boycotts of South Africa are inaccurate.

“To make that comparison is offensive and some would say anti-Semetic,” Libit said.

Opponents of the order called it unconstitutional and criticized Hogan for  what they termed political grandstanding to aid his re-election bid.

David Rocah, senior staff attorney for ACLU Maryland, called Hogan’s executive order “flagrantly unconstitutional” and said it was similar to a law the organization is challenging in Kansas.

“It’s an attempt to punish people for attempting to exercise their First Amendment right to boycott,” Rocah said, adding that Hogan’s description of the BDS movement as anti-discriminatory was “silly and offensive.”

The movement started nearly 12 years ago as an effort to pressure the Israeli government over what supporters say is a 50-year long occupation of Palestine.

Other states have taken similar action in recent years, and the American Civil Liberties Union has criticized some efforts to limit BDS activities as unconstitutional restrictions of political protests.

Ali criticized Hogan’s announcement in a post on Facebook, saying it followed “in the face of the travesties in Texas and Kansas.”

In Texas, the town of Dickinson is requiring applicants for grants related to recovery efforts following Hurricane Harvey to sign a pledge that they will not participate in boycotts or sanctions against Israel.

Ali said he worries the order will lead to discrimination.

“It’s possible that substitute teachers in MCPS — like my sister — will now be interrogated on their positions on Israel to get employment,” Ali said, referring to Esther Koontz, a Kansas math teacher who said she can no longer train other teachers because of her support of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Koontz, in a statement, has compared the sanctions to those used against South Africa to end that country’s system of apartheid.