New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stirred the immediate ire of human rights campaigners around the world on Sunday by signing an executive order calling for the creation of a “blacklist” that would track groups and individuals who support Palestinian rights through the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement known as BDS.
As the New York Times reports:
A global movement committed to fighting nonviolently to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the subjugation of the Palestinian people in the Occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, BDS has been under increasing attack by those threatened by the support for human rights it has galvanized worldwide and for shining a critical light on the abusive policies of the Israeli government when it comes to the treatment of Palestinians.
In a series of tweets, prominent Palestinian rights activist and journalist Ali Abunimah was among the first to express his contempt for the move by Cuomo:
Among progressives, Abunimah was far from alone in his critique: