Four Washington legislators who went on a 2025 tour of Israel paid for by the Israeli foreign ministry last September amid the Gaza genocide have in recent years pushed legislation in Olympia benefitting the Israeli government, including bills to criminalize street protests, suppress university campus encampments, and condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a review of legislative records by The Stranger shows. One legislator also effectively blocked a bill calling on the federal government to investigate the Israeli Defense Force’s killing of 26-year-old University of Washington graduate Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi.
All four legislators who attended the tour, called “50 States, One Israel,” serve in the Washington House of Representatives. In financial disclosure documents filed as part of their 2026 reelection campaigns, all four candidates reported accepting thousands of dollars worth of gifts from the Israeli government in the form of travel expenses to attend the 50 States, One Israel conference. Their identities, and their legislative records relating to Israel, have not been widely publicized.
Rep. David Hackney is a Democrat representing the 11th Legislative District covering Renton, Tukwila, and portions of South Seattle and Kent. A key police ally in the Legislature, Hackney spent much of his career as a federal prosecutor, and formerly served as a war crimes prosecutor with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Rep. Mari Leavitt, another Democrat, represents Washington’s 28th district in Pierce County, which is dominated by Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the largest military base in the Pacific Northwest, and Camp Murray, home of the Washington National Guard.
Republican House Minority Leader Rep. Drew Stokesbary represents the sprawl between King and Pierce Counties, and cofounded the right-wing legal group Citizen Action Defense Fund, most recently in the news for suing to overturn Washington’s new Millionaires Tax.
Rep. Chris Corry, the other Republican, represents Yakima’s 15th Legislative District (one of those recently redrawn under the Voting Rights Act in an attempt to end suppression of Latino voters), and is affiliated with the Washington Policy Center, a right-wing think tank.
The Consul General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest, Marco Sermoneta, also publicized Hackney, Leavitt, and Stokesbary’s trip to Israel during his visit to the state legislature in February, posing for photographs with each of them. Soon after, the House adopted a batch of resolutions during a pro forma session that included a recognition of the consul general. The sole Democrat cosponsoring the resolution with Republicans was Rep. Gerry Pollet, representing North Seattle.
The Knesset, Israel’s legislature, wrote in a press release about the 50 States, One Israel conference that “Rep. Drew Stokesbary, a Republican from Washington, said he was proud of the strong and special bond between Israel and the U.S., which he said was based on the countries’ identities as democratic nations.”
Opposing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
When the consul general visited Olympia, he spoke to legislators about “expanding the ties between Washington and Israel,” an agenda meant to counteract the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Similar to the campaign against Apartheid South Africa, BDS aims to economically isolate Israel for its human rights abuses.
In addition to hearing from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, legislators attending the 50 States, One Israel conference were encouraged by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to pass anti-BDS laws in their home states, as many have, beginning in 2015.
“Instead of boycotting Israel, promote engagement with Israel. Instead of divesting from Israel, promote investments in Israel. And instead of sanctioning the only Jewish state, speak out clearly against those who recycle age-old hatred in modern form,” Sa’ar told legislators.
Washington has no anti-BDS law, but Stokesbary cosponsored a bill to condemn the BDS movement as antisemitic in 2017, years before the conference. It went nowhere, and was introduced by then-Rep. Matt Shea, the far-right Spokane Valley legislator later removed from the House Republican Caucus after a House investigation found he “participated in an act of domestic terrorism against the United States.” Gerry Pollet also cosponsored the anti-BDS bill.
Shea was notably the founder of the Spokane chapter of anti-Muslim hate group ACT! for America, and distributed a manifesto that called for the killing of non-Christian males that Spokane’s county sheriff reported to the FBI, calling it “consistent with the ideology and operating philosophy” of groups including the Aryan Nations, North Idaho’s old notorious neo-Nazi organization. Shea denies being antisemitic, touting his support for Israel.
Washington is moving opposite the direction anti-BDS activists would like. In February of this year, the Office of the Washington State Treasurer sold off the state’s $62 million in corporate bonds for Caterpillar, the industrial machinery manufacturer on the BDS shortlist whose armored bulldozers have been used by the IDF to demolish Palestinian homes for decades, as well as communities in Lebanon. In 2003, Washington resident Rachel Corrie was run over and killed by an IDF Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer as she tried to stop just such a demolition in the Gaza Strip. Her family unsuccessfully sued Caterpillar, which hired a corporate intelligence firm to spy on them.
State Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti said the decision to sell was based on the financial risk of continued investment in Caterpillar after divestments from other large bondholders, and not pressure from local BDS advocates, though it must be said that the other bondholders in question, like the governments of Norway, the Netherlands, and Alameda County, divested from Caterpillar explicitly in response to Israeli human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.
On July 26, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir demanded publicly that Netanyahu “order for the IDF to obliterate—via airstrikes and D9 bulldozers—the homes of terrorists and their supporters” in the West Bank mirroring the IDF’s nearly three-year genocidal assault on Gaza.
Criminalizing Protests
As protests kicked off worldwide in response to the Israeli military’s large-scale targeting of Palestinian civilians in Gaza after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks, so too did efforts by pro-Israel politicians to suppress those protests, including in Washington state.
All four Washington legislators who attended the 50 States, One Israel conference—Hackney, Leavitt, Stokesbary, and Corry—cosponsored a bill early in the 2024 legislative session criminalizing the obstruction of highways, with punishments as harsh as felony charges and jail time. Drafted in response to a January protest demanding a ceasefire in Gaza that blocked I-5 in Seattle, the bill went nowhere. It died again in 2025 with Hackney and Leavitt cosponsoring and failed a third time this past session.
Four months after returning from the Israeli government junket, Leavitt introduced as sole sponsor a bill that would enable public college administrators to suppress campus encampment protests. In spring of 2024, students at University of Washington camped out on the Quad to demand the school divest from Israel. Similar scenes played out across Washington, and the rest of the US (to much mass hysteria).
When Leavitt brought the bill before the House Postsecondary Education & Workforce Committee, she introduced herself as “representing the beautiful 28th Legislative District, home to Joint Base Lewis McChord and Camp Murray,” without highlighting any of the district’s civilian constituencies such as Lakewood and DuPont.
The bill was not a resounding endorsement of free speech. It would bar anyone besides student organizations registered with the university and university employee unions from setting up campus encampments, require those groups to seek administrative approval for their encampments, and require those approved, permitted encampments to serve “an academic purpose.”
Should a group or individual violate a school’s encampment policy, Leavitt’s bill would require the administration to direct the encampment to disperse, threaten protesters with criminal trespass charges, discipline students who refuse to comply, and report protesters to police to be removed from campus and prosecuted. Protesters would also be liable for damages and the cost of their removal by police. Leavitt told the committee the bill was “content neutral” and “absolutely does not ban encampments.”
When asked by committee member Rep. Julia Reed whether there were “specific encampment experiences that led you to bring this bill forward,” Leavitt provided no specific examples, saying only that “across the country and in Washington there have been many opportunities where students and organizations have impeded access.”
It is hard to ignore the context. At the time, students across the state were camped out for Palestine, Leavitt had already supported a bill to criminalize highway protests after a Gaza ceasefire protest, and only months prior, she’d participated in a conference where the Israeli government encouraged American lawmakers to promote investment in Israel over divestment from Israel.
Rep. Debra Entenman brought up the Black Student Union at the University of Washington’s occupation of a campus building in 1968 to protest a lack of Black faculty, as well as “the encampments that were recently on campus,” and challenged Leavitt on the enforceability of the proposed law.
Neither Leavitt nor any of the House committee members directly mentioned Washington’s Gaza ceasefire campus encampments, though the public commenters who followed made the context in which Leavitt introduced the bill abundantly clear.
When pressed by The Stranger as to why she introduced the bill, Leavitt was more clear, saying it was because of “what happened at the University of Washington, the destruction of property,” a reference to Palestine solidarity protesters who occupied and allegedly sabotaged a UW engineering building funded in part by Boeing and demanded the university cut ties with the aerospace company due to its weapons sales to the Israeli military. Leavitt also mentioned another encampment at Western Washington University.
Leavitt initially feigned ignorance when asked what exactly those encampments were protesting, first saying she “wasn’t up there,” and “didn’t go to them.”
“I couldn’t tell you what they were protesting,” Leavitt told The Stranger before clarifying that “it appeared to be the war.”
And why did protesters, in her words, “destroy” the UW engineering building?
“I don’t know, you’d have to ask them,” she says.
Leavitt says her attendance at the 50 States, One Israel conference didn’t inform her proposed anti-encampment bill, and said that when she was in Israel she wished she could have seen “the devastation in Gaza.”
“When I was there I asked some really tough questions,” Leavitt says, “I’m not about to adopt one side of an argument just because of a trip.”
Leavitt’s anti-encampment proposal was never brought up for a vote in the committee, but she says she will reintroduce the bill next session.
BLOCKING INVESTIGATION INTO EYGI KILLING
The 2026 short session also saw Democrats fail to pass a memorial bill calling for a federal investigation into the September 2024 killing of UW graduate Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot by the IDF while protesting the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Memorials are a specific type of bill the Legislature uses to formally express concern, typically to the federal government.
During Washington’s subsequent legislative session in early 2025, the House adopted a resolution honoring Eygi sponsored by a group of Democratic lawmakers—including Gerry Pollet—in a batch with other resolutions.
The 2026 memorial, introduced by Democratic Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, would need to clear a much higher bar than the prior House resolution, having to pass multiple committee and floor votes in both chambers during a short legislative session.
It passed through the Senate Law and Justice Committee after hearing testimony from Eygi’s husband, Hamid Ali, Eygi’s sister, the parents of Rachel Corrie, former US Congressman from Washington Brian Baird, a witness to Eygi’s killing, Elisabetta Valenti, and Aria Fani, the director of the UW’s Middle East Center, who was fired from the position in March after criticizing Zionism and the US and Israeli war against Iran.
The Senate adopted an amendment by Saldaña written to gain support for the memorial from across the aisle, such as omitting words like “Palestine” and removing language blaming the IDF for Eygi’s killing, as well as the killing of Rachel Corrie, among other changes.
Before the entire Senate took a floor vote on the memorial, Democratic senators Jesse Salomon and Lisa Wellman were allowed to excuse themselves without objection, despite Salomon previously voting in committee to pass the memorial. While Salomon and Wellman are both Jewish, Jews represent a small minority in the Washington Legislature, and the pro-Israel contingent are overwhelmingly gentiles, including all four representatives who attended the 50 States One Israel trip.
Republican Sen. Keith Wagoner said his caucus was looking forward to Salomon and Wellman’s perspectives, but “Nonetheless, I rise in support of this and I want to thank Senator Saldaña for working with me to improve the tone,” saying the core of the issue was getting answers for families. He voted yes alongside remaining Democrats, and the bill was transmitted to the House.
After clearing the House State Government & Tribal Relations Committee, the memorial was ready for a House floor vote. It never made it that far. Despite Democrats working with Republicans to garner bipartisan support for the memorial, that wasn’t enough for some conservatives.
Rep. Chris Corry, six months removed from his comped trip to Israel, drafted an amendment to Saldaña’s bill largely rewriting it to call on the federal government to investigate the International Solidarity Movement—which Eygi and Corrie were protesting with when killed—and painting it as an extremist group responsible for their deaths.
Corry’s amendment came late in the short legislative session as House leaders triaged bills to determine which would survive the looming cutoff deadline. House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon said Corry’s amendment would have created “a multi-hour fight in a day when we were short on time,” and that not bringing up the memorial for a floor vote was one of “a million unpleasant decisions on these cutoff days.”
Corry told right-wing media at the time that Democrats were concerned his amendment would force a broader conversation about ISM that they didn’t want to have, but Fitzgibbon says that’s inaccurate. The issue was purely timing, and Democrats would have no issue discussing Republicans’ conspiracies about Palestinian solidarity groups, he says.
“I think that’s just giving him too much credit,” Fitzgibbon says, “I think Republicans would have enjoyed their time on the floor to call us antisemitic.”
Corry told The Stranger it wasn’t his intent for the amendment to torpedo the memorial, and that if it’s reintroduced next session (Fitzgibbon says that’s the plan) then he will reintroduce his amendment “as soon as the bill is on the House floor.”
Asked whether his amendment was the result of his attendance at the 50 States, One Israel conference, Corry says “it had nothing to do with the trip.”
