Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Our friends at the London-based UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) have announced, in their latest bulletin, the upcoming formations of promising lawyers’ groups in South Africa and the Netherlands. UKLFI notes that the only NGO in the world that does casework similar to their own is the Louis D. Brandeis Center and that the creation of lawyers’ groups in other countries is a welcome development.  Here is an excerpt from UKLFI Bulletin #63, which is well worth reading, as are UKLFI’s other materials:

South African Lawyers for Israel

Barry Shaw … is so impressed with UK Lawyers for Israel that he is trying to get equivalent organisations established in The Netherlands and South Africa.

The South African initiative is starting to take off. We are following the formation of South African Lawyers for Israel with great interest, and we look forward to liaising with the leadership of SALFI in due course.

Two prominent South African activists, Leon Reich and Motty Sacks, are organising a dinner for top lawyers in Johannesburg to recruit members for SALFI. The leaders of the new NGO will be encouraged to liaise with UK Lawyers for Israel, “who have an established model which can be adapted to SA conditions.”

There are numerous organisations of lawyers in various countries, but so far as I know (and I will happily be corrected) there is as yet no similar NGO which focuses on casework: except possibly the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights in Washington DC (which seems to be largely about campus antisemitism)….

UKLFI is correct in noting that the Brandeis Center’s principal focus is on combating campus anti-Semitism, although our mission is more broadly to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and advance justice for all.  We thank UKLFI for their recognition, and we wish a lll the best to the incipient groups in South Africa and the Netherlands.  Those who have legal connection with South Africa and who want to get involved are urged to contact David Abel.

Colmar Old Town

Colmar Old Town

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) has an interesting article on successful French efforts to prosecute BDS activists for hate crimes.  The article, appearing this weekend in Ha’aretz and elsewhere, is entitled, “BDS a hate crime? In France, legal vigilance punishes anti-Israel activists.”

JTA reports that “some 20 pro-BDS activists have been convicted under the so-called Lellouche law, which has put France at the forefront of efforts to counter the movement through legal means.”  For example, BDS activist Farida Trichine and 11 fellow protesters were fined $650 after they entered a French supermarket in 2009 and pasted stickers with anti-Israel slogans on to vegetables imported from Israel.

Three months ago, a court in Colmar convicted the 12 activists under a French law that extended the definition of discrimination beyond the expected parameters of race, religion and sexual orientation to include members of national groups.

What Trichine, who was wearing a “boycott Israel” shirt during the protest, saw as a protected act of political speech was being treated by the authorities like a hate crime….

Trichine, 54, is one of approximately 20 anti-Israel activists who have been convicted under France’s so-called Lellouche law. Named for the Jewish parliamentarian who introduced it in 2003, the law is among the world’s most potent legislative tools to fight the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, and has catapulted France to the forefront of efforts to counter the movement through legal means.

“The French government and judiciary’s determination in fighting discrimination, and the Lellouche law especially, are exemplary for Belgium and other nations where discriminatory BDS is happening,” said Joel Rubinfeld, co-chair of the European Jewish Parliament and president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism.

Dieudonné M'bala M'bala

Dieudonné M’bala M’bala

French authorities have acted aggressively in recent weeks to crack down on anti-Israel and anti-Jewish speech, most prominently by banning a tour by the comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, who has been convicted multiple times of belittling the Holocaust and alleging that a Jewish mafia runs France, among other offenses. But the dragnet has also swept up BDS protesters whose actions have targeted Israel, not Jews.

Efforts are afoot to pass similar legislation elsewhere.  Pro-Israel activists in neighboring Belgium are pushing for a similar law to Lellouche, hoping it might reduce BDS activities in that country.

The French legislation is much stronger than existing American anti-boycott legislation, including the proposed Roskam-Lapinksi bill, which would bar federally funded American universities from boycotting Israel.  Although Roskam-Lapinski is relatively mild in its provisions, it has already spurred a debate over its constitutionality.

First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh has defended the bill’s constitutionality, however, and the slowness of some Jewish organizations to get behind the bill has been attributed to political considerations.  While the French legislation could not be replicated in the United States, in light of America’s stronger protections of free speech, it is noteworthy that French jurists have been able to correctly identify that hateful qualities of BDS protests.