Palestine Legal’s Top 5 Stories of 2022

Palestine Legal’s Top 5 Stories of 2022

Palestine Legal is committed to uplifting important stories reflecting the widespread suppression of Palestine advocacy, and challenges to it, that don’t get national attention, while providing needed context and analysis on the stories that do. As we begin 2023, here’s a look back at our top five stories from 2022.

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Media Roundup: NYU student punished for writing on discarded Israeli mail bag

Media Roundup: NYU student punished for writing on discarded Israeli mail bag

Our staff attorney, Dylan Saba, spoke to the Electronic Intifada, and New York University’s (NYU) independent student newspaper Washington Square News, about our client who is a graduate student worker at NYU put under investigation by the administration for the alleged “vandalism” of an Israeli mail services bag discarded in a recycling bin.

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40+ Civil and Human Rights Groups to ABA: Controversial IHRA Definition Deployed to Target Advocacy for Palestinian Rights Should Have No Part in Resolution on Antisemitism

40+ Civil and Human Rights Groups to ABA: Controversial IHRA Definition Deployed to Target Advocacy for Palestinian Rights Should Have No Part in Resolution on Antisemitism

Last week, Palestine Legal joined more than 40 civil rights, human rights, and grassroots organizations in calling on the American Bar Association (ABA) to remove reference to the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition on Antisemitism in a proposed resolution on antisemitism.  

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Media Roundup: Palestine Legal on Dept of Ed decision to not implement distorted IHRA definition

Media Roundup: Palestine Legal on Dept of Ed decision to not implement distorted IHRA definition

Our advocacy manager, Lina Assi, spoke to the Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss about an important victory: the Department of Education’s exclusion of the distorted IHRA definition in its guidance on addressing antisemitism and other discrimination in US schools – despite heavy pressure from Israel lobby groups that use IHRA as a censorship tool.

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Palestine Legal Welcomes Ed Dept's Decision to Combat Antisemitism Without IHRA Definition In New Factsheet

Palestine Legal Welcomes Ed Dept's Decision to Combat Antisemitism Without IHRA Definition In New Factsheet

The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has released a new fact sheet describing protections that cover students who are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, or of another religious group. The fact sheet comes after years of demands by pro-Israel groups and right-wing politicians for the Biden administration to further entrench the Trump-endorsed IHRA definition of antisemitism. The Israel lobby has demanded that Biden’s Education Department enshrine the distorted definition in federal regulations.

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Success! George Washington SJP Completely Exonerated After Controversial Hearing

Success! George Washington SJP Completely Exonerated After Controversial Hearing

In written decisions issued last Friday, George Washington University cleared Students for Justice in Palestine and its president, Lance Lokas, who were wrongly charged with misconduct relating to property after SJP organized a postering campaign critical of the Israeli army’s treatment of Palestinians. 

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Danya Zituni's Op-Ed on IHRA & Expanding Police Surveillance

Danya Zituni's Op-Ed on IHRA & Expanding Police Surveillance

Communications Manager Danya Zituni published an op-ed in Truthout, on an alarming new trend of multiple U.S. cities and counties voting to adopt the distorted definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). In the Op-Ed, Danya argues that the IHRA definition is also dangerously being used to expand the scope and power of police surveillance, and provides quotes from organizers challenging IHRA on the ground from Stop LAPD Spying and Palestinian Youth Movement.

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