Scott, Colleagues Demand Biden Administration Reverse New Antisemitic Israel Boycott

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined his colleagues in sending a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on him to rescind discriminatory guidance issued by the State Department halting bilateral scientific and technological cooperation in certain Israeli-held territories. 

Joining Senator Scott as cosigners of the letter were Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).

“The guidance does something America has never done before: unilaterally impose territorial restrictions on U.S. scientific research aid to Israel,” wrote the senators. “Decades ago, the U.S. and Israel bilaterally agreed to such limits against the backdrop of unique regional conditions, but in 2020, both sides rescinded and rejected them as discriminatory.

“The new guidance as written constitutes an antisemitic boycott of Israel. The American people and Congress broadly and deeply oppose boycott efforts against Israel, which have been repeatedly defined in U.S. law as efforts to limit commercial with persons doing business in any territories controlled by Israel… The State Department’s own Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Antisemitism was excluded from deliberations over this guidance and did not clear it,” the senators continued. “This guidance in particular puts Americans’ safety, security, and prosperity at risk because it politicizes and undermines cooperation on science and technology, including in areas such as defense and medicine where also our Israeli allies have proven themselves critical partners.”

Full text of the letter can be found here.

BACKGROUND

A strong advocate for the Jewish people, Senator Scott’s work to support Israel includes the following:

• Championing a resolution, which passed out of the Senate, recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month, and celebrates the many contributions of Jewish Americans to the United States. The resolution also calls on elected officials, faith leaders, and civil society leaders to condemn and combat any and all acts of antisemitism.
• Leading a resolution recognizing Israeli-American contributions and condemning antisemitism.
• Writing a letter urging the president to deepen and expand the Abraham Accords and condemn Iraq’s 2022 law criminalizing relations with Israel during his engagements with foreign leaders.
• Calling on the Biden administration to reverse course on its plan to erode the full and faithful implementation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 by moving the Palestinian Affairs Unit (PAU) out of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel’s reporting chain of command and renaming the PAU the “U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs” that would serve as an unofficial U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem.
• Supporting the Commission of Inquiry (COI) Elimination Act to withhold U.S. funding for the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC) targeted investigation into and blatant bias against Israel. 
• Reintroducing the Taylor Force Act, which was signed into law in 2018 to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority if they continue their policy of paying monetary rewards to terrorists and their surviving family members.
• Introducing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in an effort to combat increasing incidents of antisemitism on college campuses nationwide.