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The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement will come under further potential legal threat if Jeb Bush is elected president.

Speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on 3 December, the former Florida Governor said he will employ the US Justice Department to crack down on the BDS movement against Israel and its ongoing occupation of East Jerusalem and de-facto occupation of the West Bank.

In January 2014, the US State Department unequivocally denounced boycott initiatives even on goods originating in West Bank settlements. But then in July 2015, President Obama signed into law a little supported measure to stem boycott of Israel specifically. Slipped into the Trade Promotion Authority Bill, the intention was to “to discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel,” as it related to negotiations with the European Union over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

However the Israel lobby, including AIPAC, is clearing losing steam, as witnessed in their unsuccessful lobbying against the Iran Deal.

BDS is gaining supporters everyday, most recently the National Women’s Studies Association.

Bush continued to elucidate other policies he would enact from “day one as president,” like creating so called safe-zones in the Arab world to house Syrian refugees, “while we [the US] build an army with our support and our leadership that will take on ISIS.” Just last month the governors of 31 US states, all Republicans but one, announced they would defy federal law and deny entry to refugees fleeing war and violence in Syria.

The US has taken in just 1,500 Syrian refugees applying for asylum since 2011, but the Obama administration in September stated it would accept 10,000 Syrians in 2016.

Playing on Islamophobic tropes, the GOP presidential hopeful criticized the Obama administration’s handling of terrorist threats.

“The brutal savagery of Islamic terrorism exists and this president and his former secretary of state cannot call it for what it is. It is Islamic terrorism that wants to destroy our way of life, wants to attack our freedom, they have declared war on us and we need to declare war on them,” Bush stated.

And further pandering to the room of Jewish Republicans, Bush promised to make it a particular priority to “restore the ruptured relationship with Israel.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama have indeed endured a chilly relationship, the basis of which is Netanyahu’s declarations against negotiations with the Palestinians and posturing for extremist right-wing settler movements in Israel.

Bush promised to move the United States embassy to Jerusalem on day one, and “extend [the] memorandum of understanding to provide US security assistance over the long haul to israel.”

Netanyahu was recently in DC to ask President Obama for a renewed pledge from $3 billion per year to $4.5 billion per year in US military aid to Israel. Since its founding, Israel has received $124.3 billion from the US according to a recent Congressional report.

Indeed, Israel already has the unequivocal military support of the US and a longstanding commitment by the State Department to keep a qualitative military edge.

Striking a chord with the audience, Bush seconded Israel’s right to self defense and denounced the “moral equivalence” of Palestinian terrorism. According to the Al Jazeera, nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed since 1 October, while nineteen Israelis were killed by Palestinians during the same period.