Washington - "Jerusalem" dot com - Saeed Erekat - The US Department of Commerce announced plans to increase enforcement of pre-existing anti-boycott laws, in an effort to pressure the Arab League to normalize relations with Israel .

According to the ministry, the new policy announced by the ministry on Thursday, October 6, 2022, will increase fines imposed on American companies that boycott Israel, and will also increase its focus on foreign subsidiaries of American companies.

Assistant Secretary of Commerce Matthew Axelrod, who oversees the Commerce Department's anti-boycott enforcement, disclosed the new policy in a memo to department staff and in a speech to the American Jewish Committee in Washington, a right-wing American Jewish organization known for its support of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank. Occupied West.

Axelrod, who was delivering his speech before the American Jewish Committee on the occasion of Yom Kippur, said, "It may surprise some of you to know that the Arab League's economic boycott of Israel is in fact older than Israel itself. It is the truth... The boycott of Israel existed before The existence of Israel.

Israel was born in 1948 when it won its war for independence. At the time of Israel's birth, the boycott of the Arab League had already been in place for two years, starting in 1946 as a boycott of Jewish goods and services in British-controlled Palestine.

Axelrod noted that "the initial declaration of the League of Arab States on the boycott stated that" Jewish products and goods considered undesirable to Arab countries are not "Israeli products and manufactures, but Jewish manufactured products and goods."

In other words, the boycott of the Arab League, from its inception, was not aimed at the Israelis (who were not yet as a people), but rather at the Jews.

The policy is based on a US law passed in 1979, which states that US companies and individuals will face criminal and civil penalties for participating in the Arab League's longstanding position to boycott Israel.

In his letter, Axelrod emphasized that the US Department of Commerce is doing everything it can to have the strongest anti-boycott enforcement program possible.

The political changes come two years after four Arab countries - the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan - broke the long-standing consensus in the Arab world by normalizing relations with Israel. Paved the way for the UAE and Israel to strengthen economic and security relations, prompting the US Department of Commerce last year to remove the UAE from the list of countries that were subject to its anti-boycott law.

"There is good news to report," Axelrod told the gathering Thursday. "A number of Arab League members have formally ended their participation in the Arab League's boycott of Israel, realizing that their national security, political stability, and economic prosperity are best served by improved diplomatic relations with Israel."

Egypt abandoned the boycott as part of its peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Jordan dropped the boycott as part of its peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and the Gulf Cooperation Council states—including Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—announced in September 1994 that they would not abide Any longer with what you consider to be the secondary and tertiary aspects of the boycott."

He added, "The 2020 Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, ending their participation in the boycott (the UAE). Recently, Morocco and Sudan renounced the boycott and of course took steps to strengthen their relations with Israel."

He continued, "The United Arab Emirates and Israel now share diplomatic relations, tourism exchanges, and even a free trade agreement since May, and trade between the two is thriving. Likewise, Bahrain and Morocco have established strong relations with Israel and have begun to realize economic benefits from the enhanced cooperation, but some Arab countries continue to move." In the wrong direction, naysayers such as Syria's Assad have flatly rejected "normalization" with Israel, and in May, Iraq passed a law criminalizing even normalization of relations with Israel.

In his speech on Thursday, Axelrod said the new policy could help create pressure on countries that have not yet normalized relations with Israel, including Syria and Iraq, which he noted were "moving in the wrong direction," noting: "Our office has strengthened Anti-boycott compliance now has tools to help deter violations of our anti-boycott rules, and where deterrence has proven unsuccessful, it has now enhanced tools to punish offenders."

The Arab countries have always maintained the position that normalization with Israel will only come after its withdrawal from the illegally occupied territories, in conjunction with a just solution for the Palestinian refugees and a settlement leading to the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state.

While an anti-boycott measure would penalize companies involved in boycotting the Arab League, lawmakers in the United States are pushing for legislation to strengthen the measure.

The US 1979 law applies only to companies that boycott Israel as a result of their compliance with the laws of a foreign government, and last March House Republicans introduced a bill that would effectively prevent US citizens and companies from providing information to foreign countries and international organizations that “have the effect of promoting” the boycott. Israel.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also working to advance laws that would criminalize the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

More than 30 US states have already passed their own versions of legislation that effectively force individuals and companies contracting with the state to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel.