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[Excerpts:]

"Israel’s new anti-boycott law immediately met with complaints that it violates free speech and is inconsistent with democratic values. Critics say the law itself will delegitimize Israel and alienate its supporters in Western democracies…These criticisms are wrong as a matter of principle. More insidiously, they hold Israel to a standard never applied to other nations, and criticizes it for passing laws that are well within the western democratic mainstream. Moreover, the outrage over the anti-boycott law carries a dose of hypocrisy, as it ignores numerous other laws in Israel that are used to restrict political speech generally associated with the right wing. There is no universal code of free speech. Determining what gets protection involves trade-offs between the very real harm that speech can cause and the benefit of free expression."