Oppose H.R. 867 and the Criminalization of Caring
There are laws that thunder, laws that break through doors and shatter windows. And then there are laws that slip in softly, draped in bureaucratic civility, written in the antiseptic language of commerce, diplomacy, and “national interest.”
HR 867 is the “IGO Boycott Act,” the latest mutation of the long-defeated “Israel Anti-Boycott Act.” It moves without sirens. But its aim is clear: to punish people not for what they do, but for what they believe. For choosing, in the quiet space of their conscience, to say: I will not participate.
Tell your Member of Congress to Oppose HR 867- click here to sign the petition.
This bill proposes to make it a federal crime for U.S. citizens or companies to comply with, or even furnish information to, international governmental organizations (IGOs) like the United Nations or the European Union when those bodies call for a boycott of Israel or Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. That’s right, settlements which the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and nearly every nation on Earth recognize as illegal under international law.
If passed, HR 867 would impose civil penalties of up to $250,000 and criminal penalties of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. Not for acts of violence. Not for sabotage. But for honoring a nonviolent call to boycott: a form of protest upheld again and again in U.S. legal history as a constitutionally protected right under the First Amendment.
Let’s be clear: this law isn’t about protecting Jewish communities. It isn’t about stopping hate. It is about shielding a military occupation. It is about insulating a system of apartheid, as described by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israeli NGOs like B’Tselem, from the consequences of public opinion. It is about making it dangerous, even illegal, for Americans to participate in a global consensus that says: Enough.
Boycotts have a long, honorable lineage. From Mahatma Gandhi’s swadeshi movement, to the global boycott of apartheid South Africa, to the Montgomery Bus Boycott; it is a strategy rooted in love for justice, not hatred of people. To boycott is to withdraw consent. It is a refusal to normalize the abnormal. A refusal to pretend that bulldozers, checkpoints, and snipers are part of some benign dispute.
And now they want to make that refusal a crime.
Call your representatives. Tell them you will not accept a future where international solidarity becomes illegal, where standing with the oppressed is rebranded as subversion. Tell them that conscience cannot be legislated out of existence.
Because laws like HR 867 are not just attacks on our rights. They are attacks on our capacity to care. And our duty, always, is to care louder.
Tell your Member of Congress to Oppose HR 867- click here to sign the petition.
Michael “Lefty” Morrill is the organizing director of New Hampshire Peace Action