Ramallah: The Israeli regime’s Higher Court of Justice has rejected two of three petitions opposing a 2011 law passed to stymie campaigns to boycott Israeli products.

The law outlines grounds to sue anyone who calls for a boycott of Israel, or areas under its control (Israeli colonies built on Palestinian occupied territories). Under the law, an individual, company or institution discriminated against “solely because of their affinity with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its control, in such a way that may cause economic, cultural or academic damage” is able to sue.

On Wednesday, the nine-member judicial panel ruled against the Boycott Israel and BDS movements by unanimously rejecting their petitions against the law.

Similarly, the justices upheld the section of the legislation that protected products from West Bank colonies from boycotts by a 5-4 margin.

The section of the legislation that was struck down was a clause allowing people to sue for more than compensation covering damage.

The law in question was suspended by the Supreme Court in December 2012 in the wake of the petitions.

In Wednesday’s ruling, Israeli Justice Hanan Meltzer called boycotts “political terrorism.”

NGOs opposing the bill were quoted by the left-wing +972 Magazine website in relation to the ruling, “The boycott law is a law to silence legitimate criticism. The High Court ruling is a serious blow to freedom of expression and basic rights for political participation on a disputed topic.”

The internal Palestinian campaign to stop Palestinians buying goods produced in Israeli colonies in the West Bank has been something of a success. The initial campaign did not boycott goods coming from Israel with serious calls from the campaign to the Palestinian public to distinguish between products produced by Israel and those made in the colonies built on the occupied territories. The value of colony products sold in the Palestinian market was estimated at just under a billion Shekels (approximately Dh1 billion).

Half a million Jews live among four million Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. The international community views the Israeli colonies beyond the Green Line as illegal and a major obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state.

In April, 2010, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed and issued a presidential decree stipulating punishments ranging from hefty fines to imprisonment for Palestinians dealing with colony goods. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) then tried to stop about 30,000 Palestinians from working in the Israeli colonies, but that was not possible as the PNA could not provide them with work in the Palestinian territories.

By the beginning of 2015, the Palestinians extended their boycott campaign to include all Israeli products. The wider boycott was brought in over Israel’s continued withholding of Palestinian tax revenues (as punishment for the PNA signing the Rome Statute and joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a bid to press war crime charges against Israelis).