Israel's safety belt: the US Christian Right pushes new anti-BDS initiative

‘On April 21, Tennessee’s General Assembly formally condemned the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign, the first US state legislature to do so. Joint Resolution 170 was approved 93-1 by the House of Representatives, following a 30-0 vote in the state Senate.

The resolution calls BDS “one of the main vehicles for spreading anti-Semitism”, describing it as “inherently antithetical and deeply damaging to the causes of peace, justice, equality, democracy and human rights for all the peoples in the Middle East.”

The vote, which carries no legal weight, was celebrated by pro-Israel campaigners such as StandWithUs co-founder Roz Rothstein, who tweeted “oh happy day.”

The bill was initiated by Laurie Cardoza-Moore, founder of Christian Zionist organisation Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN). For Cardoza-Moore, the context for the initiative is what she called a “current climate of increasing anti-Semitism, anti-Israel, and anti-Zionist campaigns.”

PJTN’s efforts were backed by the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, part of the Jewish Federations of North America. Executive director Mark S. Freedman testified at a Tennessee senate committee hearing, as did Christians United for Israel (CUFI)’s regional coordinator.

After the vote, Freedman expressed how “proud” he was that the state legislature had “voiced its strong support and solidarity for the State of Israel and the Jewish people and for their expression of concern over rising anti-Semitism.”

The organisation behind the bill, however, has a track record of bigotry and Islamophobia. According to official documents, PJTN exists to help “individuals and groups build strong relationships within the Christian and Jewish communities and with the State of Israel.” What this translates into is Christian Right, Tea Party-style activism.

PJTN came to prominence in 2010 for its opposition to a new Islamic community centre in Murfreesboro, a town about 30 miles south of Tennessee state capital Nashville. After bitter protests and even violent attacks, construction of the mosque proceeded, but PJTN launched a lawsuit whose central contention, incredibly, was that Islam is not a religion.

When the case come to court, one witness “admitted being paid thousands of dollars by plaintiff attorneys to read to the court from anti-Muslim websites he found”, while others said they were donors to PJTN – the same group behind the lawsuit. The case was thrown out.

The same year, Cardoza-Moore spoke at a rally against the proposed Islamic centre in New York, where she told the crowds that “nothing of the Islamic faith was part of the founding of this nation.” The PJTN president’s track record also includes campaigns against “pro-Islamic, pro-Marxist, anti-American” content in school textbooks – and blaming Obama’s Israel policy for tornadoes.

PJTN is another example of the Islamophobia industry, where the interests – both ideological and financial – of the Christian Right and Israel lobby groups overlap. In 2013, PJTN recorded more than half a million dollars of revenue, and declared US$120,000 in compensation for Cardoza-Moore.

PJTN hopes that the Tennessee state resolution will set a precedent. The Indiana House of Representatives subsequently passed House Resolution 59 by a unanimous vote which, like the Tennessee resolution, expressed “opposition to the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel” BDS movement,

In Indiana, the resolution was initiated by the Jewish American Affairs Committee of Indiana, whose president Elliot Bartky acknowledged the debt owed to “the Tennessee model anti-BDS resolution.”

PJTN’s Cardoza-Moore has said that her organisation intends “to launch a more intensive nationwide campaign to get more state legislatures to affirm their opposition to the BDS movement.” On May 2, PJTN claimed in a Facebook comment that “up to 14 states” are considering anti-BDS resolutions.

Reporting on these recent developments, JNS.org described the Tennessee and Indiana resolutions as marking “what a group of pro-Israel organizations and grassroots activists hope is just the start of a new trend in fighting BDS on American soil.” It is a sign of the times that such efforts are driven by far-right extremists, and their willing allies.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.