52. Rising resistance in Jenin and lawfare in the United States

Mar 5, 2023

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We have two interviews in this episode. First, I’ll talk to Mondoweiss’s Palestine News Director, Yumna Patel, about her new video report published today titled On The Brink: Jenin’s rising resistance. Then we’ll hear from Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, about their legal battle with the Jewish National Fund.

First, to the Jenin refugee camp.

On January 26 the Israeli army conducted a deadly invasion into the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. In the span of a few hours, the army shot and killed 9 Palestinians. A 10th Palestinian died a few days later from injuries sustained during the raid.

It was one of the deadliest single invasions into the Jenin camp, and in the West Bank, in years. It came on the heels of a year-long effort by the Israeli military to quash the resurgence of Palestinian armed resistance. The Jenin refugee camp has a long history of armed resistance to Israel’s occupation.

Yumna traveled to Jenin just days after the deadly raid to speak to the people there and hear about what they experienced.

Then, back to the United States.

In 2019 the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and a group of American Israelis sued the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) over its support for the nonviolent BDS movement. The US Campaign is a fiscal sponsor of the Boycott National Committee, which has ties to various groups in Palestine.

According to the lawsuit, some of those groups are terrorist organizations responsible for fire bomb attacks on land owned by the Jewish National Fund in Israel. Activists say this is simply the latest attempt to suppress human rights work.

Earlier this month Diala Shamas, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the attorneys representing the US Campaign, told The Guardian, “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."

In 2021 the case was dismissed by a federal court in Washington DC, but the JNF appealed and it's now back in court. Mondoweiss’s US correspondent Michael Arria spoke with US Campaign Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid about the legal proceedings, the history of the JNF, and the wider context of this fight.

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Articles and Links mentioned in the show

View our new video report, "On The Brink: Jenin's Rising Resistance"
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
A US human rights group is being sued by pro-Israel organizations over an alleged connection to ‘balloon terror, Michael Arria
‘We will not be silenced, siloed, or stopped’: federal judge tosses lawsuit targeting Palestinian rights group, Michael Arria
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