Victory in the Courts for Palestinian Rights: USCPR defeats JNF's Lawfare Attack

On Tuesday May 3rd, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a baseless lawsuit filed by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) claiming that our partners at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) had provided “material support for terrorism” by engaging in advocacy. USCPR is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), in addition to cooperating counsel Judith Chomsky and Beth Stephens.  

A federal district court dismissed the case in March 2021, and the JNF and other plaintiffs appealed. Echoing the lower court’s conclusion that the complaint was “not persuasive”, the D.C. Circuit Court found the plaintiffs’ attempt to “establish … liability fails at every turn” and that it was “nothing more than guilt by association.” The court emphasized that “[a]dvocating and coordinating a boycott of Israel — ‘economically, academically[,] and diplomatically,’... — is not unlawful.” 

USCPR is a grassroots organization that provides resources to the U.S. solidarity movement working for freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people through constitutionally-protected policy campaigns, boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) initiatives, and other activities. They are one of the oldest and largest Palestine solidarity organizations in the US. 

The lawsuit against USCPR was filed in November 2019 by the JNF and several dual U.S.-Israeli citizens who live in Israel. The JNF is an unofficial arm of the Israeli government, holding 13% of all Israeli land, mostly stolen from Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons, and managed under an apartheid system that privileges Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians. 

The lawsuit attempts to paint USCPR advocacy activities as unlawful, including support for BDS campaigns, USCPR’s tweets in support of the Great March of Return in Gaza during which hundreds of Palestinians were killed and thousands injured by Israeli snipers, as well its support for the Stop the JNF Campaign, which mobilizes against the JNF’s continuing theft of Palestinian land. The complaint made the absurd allegation that these activities that are clearly First Amendment protected, along with USCPR’s fiscal sponsorship of the Boycott National Committee, were enough to connect the group to alleged acts of “terrorism” that it claimed were undertaken by Palestinian groups designated by the US as “terrorist.”

The courts’ resounding dismissal of the case sends a strong signal to Israel groups that such tactics will not pass legal muster. The lawsuit was based on a law that allows U.S. plaintiffs to sue for damages resulting from acts of terrorism abroad. The complaint alleged that, through its advocacy work, USCPR “aided and abetted” acts of “terrorism” - namely flammable kites and balloons that Palestinians in Gaza released during the Great March of Return, which allegedly caused fires in non-indigenous forests the JNF planted on stolen Palestinian land. The lawsuit demanded $90 million from USCPR for plaintiffs’ “extreme emotional pain” from losing the use of recreation areas in the forests.

This statute, the Anti-Terrorism Act, is what legal scholar Darryl Li calls “essentially bespoke legislation for the Zionist movement in the United States.” It was developed and has been exploited to go after Palestinians who dare to “[resist] their dispossession in any manner that may disturb the plaintiffs’ ability to enjoy the fruits of said dispossession.” In this way, Li argues, the case against the USCPR can been seen as “an aggressive assertion of the right to colonize.” 

The lawsuit is a primary example of lawfare: Israel and its allies, in a similar fashion to other right-wing forces, are abusing our legal system to harass and scare human rights defenders advocating to protect the most vulnerable. Lawfare against Palestine solidarity groups goes hand in hand with Big Oil’s attacks on Indigenous water protectors and environmental justice activists - it is a tactic aimed at silencing dissent. Allowing such meritless lawsuits to advance forces defendants into a chilling and draining process that can seriously harm already under-resourced human rights organizations. 

The court’s decision is a clear rebuff to such legal bullying efforts, which Israel and its allies have long used in their attempt to shut down the Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S. As USCPR stated in response to the dismissal, “This lawsuit was meant to silence us, so let’s raise our voices loud.” 

In nine years, from January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2022, Palestine Legal responded to a total of 2,201 incidents of repression of Palestine advocacy. See our 2022 Year-in-Review here. 

For more information on the legal attack on the Palestine movement, see our report with the Center for Constitutional Rights, The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the U.S.

For more details on the case against USCPR, see CCR’s case page here.

For more background on the case and its implications, see Palestine Legal’s FAQ here.