+972 Magazine Interview with Dima Khalidi
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Dima Khalidi was interviewed by Amjad Iraqi for +972 Magazine.
The following piece was published in +972 Magazine on October 18, 2017. Click here to view the full interview.
‘A legal shield for the Palestine movement in the U.S.’
By Amjad Iraqi with Dima Khalidi
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of a Kansas public school teacher who, as a condition for taking her job, was required under a new state law to declare that she would not engage in boycotts of Israel. The law is just one in a growing list of measures in recent years aiming to counter the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the United States.
Political boycotts in the U.S. are meant to be stringently protected under the First Amendment. “The state should not be telling people what causes they can or can’t support,” Esther Koontz, the Kansas teacher, said about her lawsuit.
That’s not necessarily the reality these days, however. “It’s clear that when it comes to talking about Palestine, there’s a suspension of the notion that the government has no authority to interfere in that right,” says Dima Khalidi, founder and director of Palestine Legal.