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March 19th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
Two Failed Lawsuits
In 2018, a Palestinian-American named Suhair Nafal made a Facebook post about the murder of Razan al-Najjar.
Al-Najjar was a 21-year-old medic was who killed by an Israeli sniper while tending to injured protestors during the Great March of Return protests of 2018. Israel claimed that her death was an accident, but an investigation by the Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem concluded that it was intentional. “Contrary to the many versions offered by the military, the facts of the case lead to only one conclusion,” it reads. “An investigation conducted by B’Tselem proves 20-year-old al-Najjar was fatally shot by a member of the security forces who was aiming directly at her as she was standing about 25 meters away from the fence, despite the fact that she posed no danger to him or anyone else and was wearing a medical uniform.”
Nafal uploaded a picture of the late medic, next to a picture of a young, female IDF solider and contrasted the actions of the two women. Nafal had gotten the picture of the solider from promotional material put out by the Israeli army. The person in that photo is Rebecca Rumshiskaya, a 26-year-old who moved to Israel from Massachusetts in 2012 and became an instructor with the IDF. Two years after Nafal made the post, Rumshiskaya launched a defamation suit against her for $6 million.
Nafal’s post never implied that Rumshiskaya was responsible for al-Najjar’s murder, but that didn’t deter pro-Israel sites from running with that narrative. It also didn’t stop the pro-Israel NGO Shurat HaDin from taking on her case. The group was clear about its intentions: it wanted to scare BDS activists.
“The war on anti-Semitism has expanded to the legal sphere as well, and Rebecca’s lawsuit is the spearhead of our struggle against the global boycott movement against Israel,” its founder Darshan-Leitner explained. “This is a message to all BDS activists, who should know that they too may be held responsible for their anti-Zionist activity and may even need to pay a heavy price.”
Last month, a California judge dismissed the suit and granted Nafal an anti-SLAPP motion, which requires Rumshiskaya to pay Nafal’s legal fees. It was hailed as a BDS victory by many.
We cover attempts to censor pro-Palestine sentiment at the site every week, but there’s something unprecedented about this case. Rumshiskaya’s attorney tried to introduce an Israeli defamation law into a California courtroom. Nafal’s attorney Haytham Faraj told me that he wasn’t aware of any previous case where this had been attempted:
“This was not a lawsuit from Rebecca [Rumshiskaya] against Suhair. This was a lawsuit from Israel against all activists. [Rumshiskaya] could have found a court somewhere to issue a judgement finding that she had been injured in her reputation and that would have been some modicum of justice for her. She did not. This was an Israeli initiative, by an enterprise that wants to silence activists, filed in hope of establishing a precedent.”
A couple weeks later, Palestinian activists scored another legal win in California. In last week’s newsletter, we mentioned that pro-Israel lawyer David Abrams was suing UCLA in an attempt to reveal the names of speakers at a 2018 Students for Justice in Palestine conference.
Alex Kane reported on the case earlier this month at The Intercept. “The lawsuit is a test case for whether right-wing Israel advocates can exploit public records laws meant to promote government accountability in order to undermine the Palestinian rights movement by erasing activists’ anonymity,” wrote Kane. “In filing the lawsuit, Abrams has joined the ranks of those who exploit public records laws against their ideological opponents, a tool that has hit climate scientists, labor studies departments, abortion clinics, and agricultural researchers, among others. Because they are public institutions, public universities are subject to such requests.”
Speakers at the event had ample reason to be concerned. As soon as they’re out in the public, the names of Palestine activists are regularly compiled by the website Canary Mission. Canary Mission smears them as terrorists, antisemites, and reaches out to prospective employers to sabotage their job prospects. It’s no wonder that some give up activism over the harassment.
“David Abrams and other rightwing actors are trying to strike fear into students who are on the just side of history,” reads a National Students for Justice in Palestine statement released before the hearing. “We’re building people power on campuses from coast to coast, and the movement for Palestinian liberation is a progressive issue that we are proud to be a part of.”
Judge James C. Chalfant ruled in favor of the speakers and found that their privacy outweighed any public interest in releasing the names. He also acknowledged the consistent persecution that many Palestine activists endure as a result of their work. In his decision, he wrote that there’s “evidence of harassment, job difficulties, and problems entering Israel emanating generally from pro-Palestinian activism” and said he was withholding the names to “avoid a chilling effect” on free speech.
“The court ruled today that student activists for Palestine have the right to host gatherings on their campuses without facing threats to their privacy and safety,” said Asian Law Caucus’s Glenn Katon in a statement. “Public records laws should not be used as a weapon to threaten students exercising their First Amendment rights. We are pleased that the court rejected Mr. Abrams’ argument that he should be entitled to conduct his own investigation into Palestinian activists, which was based on the bigoted premise that those activists have ties to terrorism simply because they advocate for Palestinian human rights.”
Odds & Ends
👮 Trust in the military and law enforcement has fallen by double digits since 2018, according to a study by that noted liberal think tank…the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
🇺🇸 From the Independent: “A study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed overall arms exports over the last five years remained flat, with declines in the sales of weapons by Russia and China offset by rising exports from the United States, France and Germany.
“‘It’s surprising that the countries that are the ones boasting that they are following and setting international laws and norms are the ones that are the biggest exporters,’ said Siemon Wezeman, a researcher focusing on arms and military expenditures at SIPRI.”
✉️ 12 House members have sent SOS Antony Blinken a letter, calling on the Biden administration to commit to a foreign policy that “supports the human rights and dignity of Palestinian people.”
🇵🇸 The National obtained a leaked State Department memo detailing Biden’s plans for a “reset” in the Middle East. The administration seemingly wants to move away from Trump’s awful policy of letting Israel do anything it wants openly and return to the policy of letting Israel do anything it wants but occasionally criticizing them.
🇦🇫 President Biden says it will be “tough” to meet the May 1st withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan. Imagine that.
💻 Yarden Katz has a fantastic piece on our site about Microsoft’s investments in Israeli settler-colonialism.
🇮🇷 Good piece by Matthew Petti at the Quincy Institute on Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez (D–NJ) trying to sabotage any prospects of returning to Iran Deal.
🇰🇷 🇰🇵 71 Korean leaders sent Biden a letter calling for an end to the Korean War: “There are human costs to inaction. Tens of thousands of Korean families — including many Korean Americans — remain separated as a result of this seven decades-long war. Days before the election, you wrote that as you peered across the DMZ, you ‘felt the pain of division on the Korean Peninsula and the separation of families since the Korean War.’ Imagine the heartbreak for so many elderly Koreans waiting to see their loved ones. For too many, time is running out.”
🇵🇸 Last week, 5 Palestinian children were arrested by the Israeli military for picking flowers. They were held at the police station for at least 3 hours.
“Seeing the images of heavily armed Israeli soldiers manhandling and detaining these five preteen Palestinian children is extremely disturbing,” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) told Middle East Eye. “I intend to continue to work as hard as I can to ensure US taxpayer dollars provided as military aid to Israel are not being used in any way that violates the rights of any Palestinian, especially children.”
Stay safe out there,
Michael
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