Palestine Legal

Overview

Palestine Legal is an independent legal organization that provides advice and support to anti-Israel activists.

The group provides extensive assistance to anti-Israel student activist groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow (INN).

Palestine Legal has provided legal defense to multiple university students embroiled in controversies over anti-Semitic or violent content posted online, including Yasmeen Mashayekh, Ahmad Daraldik and Nerdeen Kiswani.

In addition, they provided assistance to two convicted terrorists with the internationally designated terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Palestine Legal works “to protect the right" for activists to engage in Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement initiatives and has reportedly drafted the texts of multiple university campus BDS resolutions.

The group maintains a database of legislation that it claims targets “advocacy for Palestinian rights” and urges activists to contact government officials to campaign against such legislation.

The organization has offices in Chicago, New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Background

Palestine Legal, formerly known as Palestine Solidarity Legal Support, was founded in 2012 by Dima Khalidi.

It was officially launched in 2013 by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) as part of the Student Speech Working Group in collaboration with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The Student Speech Working Group’s organizations also included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – San Francisco Bay Area and JVP.

Partners and Staff

According to its official website, Palestine Legal works “closely” with several legal organizations known for their anti-Israel stance, including CCR and NLG, to provide legal support to anti-Israel activists.

Palestine Legal also lists as its “partners” CAIR and the U.S. Campaign For Palestinian Rights (USCPR), a coalition of American-based anti-Israel organizations that lobbies the U.S. Congress to adopt anti-Israel legislation and end government support for Israel.

Palestine Legal’s staff features an array of longtime anti-Israel activists:

• Dima Khalidi, Palestine Legal’s founder and director, has “worked on numerous cases that sought to hold Israeli officials and corporations accountable” for what Palestine Legal alleges to be “Israeli violations of international law.”

  
  

• Liz Jackson, Palestine Legal’s founding staff attorney, has been a BDS activist since 2010, when she advised a divestment campaign launched by SJP at the University of California, Berkeley (Cal SJP). She is also a former member of Cal SJP.

  
  

• Radhika Sainath, Palestine Legal’s senior staff attorney, was involved with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) during the second intifada. She also helped organize a so-called “fact-finding delegation to the Gaza Strip” in 2009, following Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” against Hamas.

  
  

• Angela Campion, Palestine Legal’s development and operations manager, is a former organizer and communications manager with SJP.

  
  

• Kristian Davis Bailey, Palestine Legal’s communications manager, is a former campus and national organizer with SJP.

  
  

• Leila Elaqad, Palestine Legal’s development and administrative associate, was previously Operations Coordinator at CAIR-Columbus, Ohio from July to August 2017.

  
  

• Amal Thabateh, Palestine Legal’s Michael Ratner Justice Fellow, is a former intern at CAIR in New York.
  

  
  

Funding

Palestine Legal states that it is a “fiscally sponsored project” of Tides.

The group also receives funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), which has a history of supporting anti-Jewish and anti-Israel causes, including BDS campaigns.

As of June 2021, anti-Israel activist Roger Waters was a major donor to Palestine Legal.

Dismissing Anti-Semitism

Palestine Legal campaigns against the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and its implementation in the U.S., claiming that the definition is “designed to silence advocacy for Palestinian freedom.”

The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Twenty-eight European countries, as well as Canada, Australia, Israel and Argentina, have also adopted the definition.

Several examples of anti-Semitism given in the IHRA definition relate to Israel. At the same time, the definition states: “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

Palestine Legal tracks proposed legislation across the U.S. that seeks to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, re-framing it as “Legislation targeting advocacy for Palestinian rights.” 

• In January 2022, Palestine Legal together with JVP published a resource opposing the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

  
  

• In July 2021, in the wake of Israel’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW)” against Hamas in Gaza, Palestine Legal published a post that dismissed reports of a surge in anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. during that period. 

  
  

Anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. “more than doubled” during OGW and its aftermath, compared to the same time period in 2020, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Alongside that, Palestine Legal provides legal support to anti-Israel activists to help whitewash, downplay or dismiss their anti-Semitic and violent rhetoric posted to social media by portraying their remarks as being merely “protected speech critical of Israel.”

Providing Legal Support to Anti-Israel Activists

Palestine Legal has provided significant legal support for individuals and groups under fire from accusations of anti-Semitism, making threats of violence and engaging in discriminatory activity.

• In 2020, Palestine Legal provided support for SJP and Within Our Lifetime (WOL) leader Nerdeen Kiswani, after a video she posted went viral in which she threatened to set a man’s Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sweatshirt on fire. Palestine Legal said Kiswani was the target of a “Zionist smear campaign” for her “jest.” Palestine Legal states that it has “proudly supported” Kiswani since 2014.

  
  

• In December 2020, Palestine Legal provided support for Ahmad Daraldik, an SJP activist at Florida State University (FSU) who was at the center of a controversy following the exposure of Daraldik’s anti-Semitic social media posts, such as “stupid jew thinks he is cool.” Palestine Legal together with CAIR-Florida sent a letter to FSU’s President defending Daraldik and framing his posts as “remarks critical of Israel’s occupation.”

  
  

• In 2019, Palestine Legal and two other groups sent a joint letter to a library in New Jersey that had canceled a JVP children’s book reading of “P is for Palestine” by Golbarg Bashi. The book was surrounded by controversy for its reported glorification of “intifada.”
  
  The book states [00:01:10]: “I is for Intifada. Intifada is Arabic for rising up for what is right, whether you are a kid or a grownup.”
  
  The term “intifada” has carried the connotation of violence, since the early 2000’s.
  
  Palestine Legal’s letter asked the library to reschedule the event and apologize to JVP and Bashi. The library eventually allowed the event to go ahead.

  
  

• In 2018, Palestine Legal advised a University of Michigan (UM) professor, John Cheney-Lippold, who refused to write a recommendation letter for a student who was going to study in Israel, citing his support for BDS.
  
  UM disciplined Cheney-Lippold with a number of sanctions and issued a letter stating his conduct had “fallen far short” of the University’s expectations for how “faculty interact with and treat students,” that Lippold’s “behavior in this circumstance was inappropriate and will not be tolerated” and that “a student's merit should be your primary guide for determining how and whether to provide a letter of recommendation.”

  
  

• In April 2017, Palestine Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of SJP, after Fordham University (Fordham) rejected SJP’s request to create a campus chapter. Fordham’s dean explained that he believed SJP would create “polarization” on campus that would “run contrary to the mission and values” embraced at Fordham.

  
  

In August 2019, a New York court mandated that Fordham recognize SJP as an official club. Fordham, however, successfully appealed the ruling and in December, 2020, the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division overturned the lower court’s decision.

• In 2017, Palestine Legal provided legal defense for seven members of IfNotNow (INN) who were arrested for trespassing, after they attempted “to occupy the lobby” of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) West Coast office and blocked the entrance for about 40 minutes.

  
  

AIPAC’s mission, as stated on their website, is to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel.”

• In March 2015, Palestine Legal defended an SJP chapter at New York University (NYU), after its members slipped fake eviction notices under the doors of over 2,000 students living in two student residence halls.The group has also published a “Mock Eviction Actions Preparation Checklist” to guide students on how to prepare, promote and carry out “mock eviction actions” on college campuses.

  
  

• In September 2013, Palestine Legal and CCR published a “Legal and Tactical Guide” for “Palestinian Human Rights Advocacy in the U.S.” The guide advised students on staging anti-Israel mock checkpoints, protests, marches and demonstrations.

  
  

Defending Yasmeen Mashayekh

In 2021, Palestine Legal defended Yasmeen Mashayekh, a student who was [00:11:08] then embroiled in a national controversy over anti-Semitism she spread on social media that year.

In October 2021, Mashayekh was listed as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Senator for University of Southern California (USC)’s Viterbi School of Engineering (Viterbi). In May 2021, she tweeted: “I want to f**king kill every motherf**king Zionist.” She also tweeted: “yel3an el yahood [curse the Jews].”

Mashayekh also spread violent hatred of Israeli Jews, called for the destruction of Israel and America, expressed support for Hamas and glorified terrorists.

Mashayekh was condemned after Canary Mission exposed her anti-Semitic tweets.

Palestine Legal claimed Mashayekh was targeted “for speaking out for Palestinian rights.”

In a letter to the editor at the Los Angeles Times, Zoha Khalili, writing as staff attorney at Palestine Legal, portrayed Mashayekh’s comments as being allegedly “political speech disagreeing with the ideology behind the Israeli government’s expansionist violence.”

Mashayekh’s name was reportedly removed from a post on the school’s website celebrating women leaders, where she was a graduate student.

After Palestine Legal intervened, Mashayekh’s profile was restored to the site.

Defending PFLP Terrorists

Rasmea Odeh

Palestine Legal, under its old name “Palestine Solidarity Legal Support,” was on the defense committee for Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, while she was on trial in the U.S. for immigration fraud.

Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08] with the PFLP, an internationally designated terrorist organization. Odeh confessed to masterminding a bombing in a Jerusalem supermarket in 1969 that killed two university students. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate the same year.

Odeh was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment by an Israeli court but was released 10 years later in a prisoner swap and then emigrated to the United States. She was convicted of immigration fraud in 2014, as she did not disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. Odeh was eventually stripped of her U.S. citizenship in 2017 and deported to Jordan.

Palestine Legal signed a statement opposing Odeh’s 2013 indictment for immigration fraud, claiming Odeh was an “exemplary citizen.”

Another statement published by Palestine Legal in 2014 claimed Odeh “committed no crime, and is only under attack because she is a Palestinian icon.”

Leila Khaled

In October 2020, Palestine Legal sent a letter to the Zoom digital video conferencing platform, criticizing their refusal to stream several online events featuring Leila Khaled.

Zoom cited Khaled’s “reported affiliation or membership in a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization” a likely violation of Zoom’s Terms of Service.

Khaled was a leading member of the PFLP and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, she was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau.

Khaled has advocated [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough.

Palestine Legal accused Zoom of “a dangerous attack on free speech and academic freedom” and of deciding “to censor discussion of Palestinian freedom.” The letter also claimed that Khaled “did not plan to represent the PFLP” at the events.