Overview

• FEMA grant notices issued August 4 require state and local governments to certify they will not sever “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies” to access $1.9 billion in disaster preparedness funding and $553.5 million in counterterrorism grants.
• More than 30 states already enforce anti-BDS laws, making the FEMA condition largely symbolic according to the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change.
• A DHS spokesperson for Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency will enforce all anti-discrimination policies, calling the BDS movement “expressly grounded in antisemitism.”
• The certification requirement follows July’s directive tying parts of FEMA’s terrorism-prevention funds to migrant arrest efforts, underscoring a pattern of political leverage in federal grantmaking.
• Pro-Israel advocates such as the American Jewish Committee have praised the move while free-speech proponents and MAGA figures including Candace Owens have condemned it.