Cuomo Counters Boycotts of Israel Governor signs order to divest state funds from businesses supporting a boycott against Israel By Zolan Kanno-Youngs
http://www.wsj.com/articles/cuomo-counters-boycotts-of-israel-1465174998
‘If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.’
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order Sunday to divest state funds from businesses supporting a boycott against Israel.
Mr. Cuomo said the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement “is in many ways more frightening” than tunnels Hamas constructed to infiltrate Israel.
“We are against the BDS movement and it’s very simple,” Mr. Cuomo said in remarks at the Harvard club in Midtown before marching in the Celebrate Israel Parade on the Upper East Side. “If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.”
The order would prevent state agencies and departments from investing in companies boycotting Israel. The state Office of General Services will develop a list of those institutions and companies and post it online within 180 days. The office will notify the businesses before adding them to the list and give them 90 days to show proof they aren’t supporting the boycott.
The movement against Israel began about a decade ago. The Palestinian BDS National Committee, which coordinates the initiative, didn’t return a request for comment. The committee’s website describes the movement as “a strategy that allows people of conscience to play an effective role in the Palestinian struggle for justice.”
‘If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.’
Mr. Cuomo said New York was the first state to issue such an such an order.
A Republican-sponsored bill with similar aims as Mr. Cuomo’s order passed the state Senate in January. Senate majority leader John J. Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, applauded the order.
“The governor sends a strong message to the entire country—New York will continue to stand with the state of Israel and the Jewish people,” Mr. Flanagan said.
In a statement provided through a spokesman, Donna Lieberman, executive director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the group would be looking “very closely at this executive order.”
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