Illinois voters approve proposals objecting to state law against Israel boycotts

Voters in eight Illinois municipalities approved non-binding ballot measures objecting to the state's anti-BDS law. Oak Park saw 65% approval despite opposition from the local Jewish community and the Jewish United Fund. The measures have no legal effect but are celebrated by pro-Palestinian groups as a sign of shifting public opinion against the 2015 law.

Voters in eight Illinois municipalities approved ballot measures last week registering formal objections to the state's law that bars state pension investments in companies that boycott Israel. The measures are non-binding and have no effect on state policy, but pro-Palestinian groups are celebrating them as signs of shifting public opinion against the 2015 anti-BDS law. In Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, 65% of voters approved the measure despite opposition from the local Jewish community and the Jewish United Fund (JUF). Dan Goldwin, JUF's chief public affairs officer, noted that Oak Park voters supported the measure by smaller margins than they did top Democratic candidates, and said the passage would not change JUF's strategy. Rabbi Adir Glick of Conservative Temple Har Zion described the campaign as feeling like a local chapter of a global movement to destroy the world's only Jewish state. Separately, Bloomington Township approved a measure urging a federal ban on weapons transfers to countries deemed dictatorships, apartheid states, or major human rights violators, language that pro-Palestinian activists apply to Israel. The article also notes a binding ballot referendum in Providence, Rhode Island, to divest from countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.