The Jewish National Fund (JNF), one of the world's oldest Zionist organizations with close ties to the Israeli government, is suing a major Palestinian rights group in the United States under American anti-terrorism laws for its support for the international boycott movement.

According to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a coalition of organizations working to end the decades-long occupation of East Al-Quds and the West Bank, the lawsuit is part of a larger, Israeli-led strategy to harass organizations critical of Palestinian oppression.

The JNF and a group of American-Israelis are suing the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights for damages related to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights' support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is led by Palestinians to mobilize nonviolent international pressure on "Israel." The JNF claims that the BDS movement is a front for terrorist organizations.

The Israeli government has outlawed support for the BDS movement, claiming that it seeks "Israel's" demise as a "Jewish state" and is thus antisemitic.

Criminalizing the Palestinian cause 

A lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights who represents the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Diala Shamas, describes the legal action as part of a larger Israeli-led strategy to discredit and criminalize the Palestinian cause, which includes laws in more than 30 US states criminalizing support for boycotts of "Israel."

“The goal here is to harass the US Campaign [for Palestinian Rights]. This is something that we’re seeing more broadly: smearing human rights advocates with accusations of terrorism, and efforts to drag human rights advocates and protesters into court, into extended litigation that distracts them from their advocacy. In the Palestine context we see that happening a lot, both in the United States and by Israel,” she said.

The JNF lawsuit was filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of attacks by groups designated by the US government as foreign terrorist organizations to sue for damages in US courts.

According to the lawsuit, the BDS movement is largely controlled by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other groups designated as "terrorist" organizations by the United States and "Israel."

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The legal action claims that the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights is materially "supporting terrorism" by raising funds for BDS and supporting the boycott movement. Along with the JNF, the plaintiffs include American-Israelis who claim to have "suffered trauma" while living in communities targeted by retaliation rockets from Gaza.

In 2021, a federal court in Washington, DC dismissed the lawsuit, citing the JNF and other plaintiffs' "threadbare assertions" of financial support for terrorism. The JNF filed an appeal, claiming that the dismissal decision was incorrect in light of "very gross violations of the anti-terrorism statute" during a court hearing last week.

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights lawyers say that the BDS movement is not an illegal organization and that it was founded by an array of legitimate Palestinian groups as a peaceful means of fighting for their rights.

The lawsuit also seeks damages from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights over its support for the “Stop the JNF” movement because of the fund’s controversial policies.

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