Colmar Old Town The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) has an interesting article on successful French efforts to prosecute BDS activists for hate crimes. The article, appearing this weekend in Ha’aretz and elsewhere, is entitled, “BDS a hate crime? In France, legal vigilance punishes anti-Israel activists.” JTA reports that “some 20 pro-BDS activists have been convicted under the so-called Lellouche law, which has put France at the forefront of efforts to counter the movement through legal means.” For example, BDS activist Farida Trichine and 11 fellow protesters were fined $650 after they entered a French supermarket in 2009 and pasted stickers with anti-Israel slogans on to vegetables imported from Israel. Three months ago, a court in Colmar convicted the 12 activists under a French law that extended the definition of discrimination beyond the expected parameters of race, religion and sexual orientation to include members of national groups. What Trichine, who was wearing a “boycott Israel” shirt during the protest, saw as a protected act of political speech was being treated by the authorities like a hate crime…. Trichine, 54, is one of approximately 20 anti-Israel activists who have been convicted under France’s so-called Lellouche law. Named for the Jewish parliamentarian who introduced it in 2003, the law is among the world’s most potent legislative tools to fight the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, and has catapulted France to the forefront of efforts to counter the movement through legal means. “The French government and judiciary’s determination in fighting discrimination, and the Lellouche law especially, are exemplary for Belgium and other nations where discriminatory BDS is happening,” said Joel Rubinfeld, co-chair of the European Jewish Parliament and president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism. Dieudonné M’bala M’bala French authorities have acted aggressively in recent weeks to crack down on anti-Israel and anti-Jewish speech, most prominently by banning a tour by the comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, who has been convicted multiple times of belittling the Holocaust and alleging that a Jewish mafia runs France, among other offenses. But the dragnet has also swept up BDS protesters whose actions have targeted Israel, not Jews. Efforts are afoot to pass similar legislation elsewhere. Pro-Israel activists in neighboring Belgium are pushing for a similar law to Lellouche, hoping it might reduce BDS activities in that country. The French legislation is much stronger than existing American anti-boycott legislation, including the proposed Roskam-Lapinksi bill, which would bar federally funded American universities from boycotting Israel. Although Roskam-Lapinski is relatively mild in its provisions, it has already spurred a debate over its constitutionality. First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh has defended the bill’s constitutionality, however, and the slowness of some Jewish organizations to get behind the bill has been attributed to political considerations. While the French legislation could not be replicated in the United States, in light of America’s stronger protections of free speech, it is noteworthy that French jurists have been able to correctly identify that hateful qualities of BDS protests.