When a person becomes a citizen of a nation, they are asked to swear loyalty to that nation and not another.

Bahia Amawi is a naturalized American citizen, born in Austria to Palestinian parents and has worked for almost ten years for the schools in Texas. However, she was recently fired from her job because as her contract came time for renewal, she refused to sign a recently passed law that demanded employees swear loyalty to Israel by refusing to engage in any boycott of Israel or Israeli businesses:

A Texas elementary school speech pathologist has filed a federal lawsuit after her school district refused to renew her contract unless she signed a pro-Israel oath.

Bahia Amawi has worked for the Pflugerville Independent School District since 2009 on a contract basis. Each year when it came to the time to renew her contract, the school district did so. Amawi always signed the correct documents, and had another year of guaranteed employment.

But this year, in August, there was a new addition to the contract papers. That addition was an oath which Amawi was being asked to sign, promising that she “will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract” and will refrain from any action “that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israel-controlled territory.”

That was a problem for Amawi, who, along with her family, refrains from buying goods from Israeli companies in support of the global boycott to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

But aside from that, Amawi noted that the very fact that this was the only oath she was being asked to sign – and it was to do with Israel – was extremely strange.

“It’s baffling that they can throw this down our throats, and decide to protect another country’s economy versus protecting our constitutional rights,” Amawi, who was born in Austria and is of Palestinian descent, told The Intercept.

She said it was entirely out of the question to sign such an oath, as it would not only be doing Palestinians a disservice, but also Americans.

“I couldn’t in good conscience do that. If I did, I would not only be betraying Palestinians suffering under an occupation that I believe is unjust…but I’d also be betraying my fellow Americans by enabling violations of our constitutional rights to free speech and to protest peacefully,” said Amawi, who has lived in America for the last 30 years and is a US citizen. (source, source)

There is much of good and bad on both sides in the Israel-Palestine debacle, which is a discussion into itself. Likewise, one has the freedom to choose to purchase or not purchase Israeli products, and if one wants to do so to “support” or “boycott” Israel as a part of this, that is one’s choice.

However, the idea that outside of considering exceptional circumstances (such as an alliance in a major war), that a citizen of a nation would be obligated to support another nation and if they did not would face personal economic consequences is a serious indication of the influence of a foreign lobby. In the case of the US it is the Israeli lobby, but if this were in another nation it would be the nation saying that it cannot be criticized.

Taboos in any culture are based on what is considered appropriate behavior, and many revolve around power. For example one does religious taboos exist because people do not want offend God because He is all powerful and He is able to decide what is right and what is wrong. In most other cases, it is about human power.

For example, Thailand is a very “liberal” nation, but one thing that nobody can do without risking serious jail time or death is to criticize at all the King of Thailand. The same is said about the Chinese Communist Party in China, Putin in Russia, the Saud family of Saudi Arabia, or Erdogan of Turkey. One does not criticize them because they are in power, and they make the rules.

What does it say about America where one can criticize any political party, saying what they want, but both political parties without hesitation compete to show their devotion to Israel, and there is no resistance to promoting laws that punish people for holding as their own personal opinions views that say “I do not wish to support this foreign nation called Israel?”

Is it “the President” and “the Congress”, or “George Soros” who controls America, or is it a group of lobbyists composed of industrialists and financiers through the Federal Reserve Bank who are disproportionately tied to the nation of Israel and place her interests over those of the nation they claim to advocate for?

Just some food for thought.