The Lawfare Project has just published a legal analysis paper it believes will “demolish the claims of Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights” that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement aimed against Israel is impervious to legal threat. The New York based non-profit legal organization is dedicated to fighting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic “lawfare,” which it defines as “the use of the law as a weapon of war,” and “the abuse of Western laws and judicial systems to achieve strategic military or political ends” against Israel. The paper, entitled “The Illegality of BDS in New York State: Response to Frivolous Arguments of Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights,” observes that “BDS advocates claim that any boycott of Israel, Israeli goods, or Israeli persons is protected by the First Amendment, and that the application of state anti-discrimination laws to prohibit or penalize BDS activities is consequently unconstitutional.” However, the paper demonstrates the “fatal flaws” of their arguments, and warns business contemplating the implementation of BDS practices that they must understand these flaws, “lest they find themselves subject to potentially crushing legal liability.” The paper first analyzes false claim that BDS is entirely protected under the Supreme Court’s landmark 1982 decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. It points out that while that decision foreclosed certain boycotters from facing liability under a theory of tortious and malicious interference with business, it did not foreclose their liability under, for example, New York State law, which “expressly prohibits boycott activity targeting persons and entities because of their national origin.” It also notes that Claiborne only declared it unconstitutional for government to completely prohibit speech and advocacy promoting boycotts; the decision left it perfectly constitutional for a government to forbid actual boycotts. Thus, the paper emphasizes that New York’s anti-boycott statute is perfectly constitutional under Claiborne, as it is “limited to business activity [actual boycotts] and, notably, does not forbid advocacy, picketing, or other forms of speech in furtherance of boycotting.” Later, the paper also notes that according to the Second Circuit’s opinion in Jews for Jesus, Inc., a suit brought under New York’s anti-boycott statutes will withstand a First Amendment challenge, as the statute “easily satisfy [the] criteria” necessary for states to “constitutionally regulate conduct even if such regulation entails an incidental limitation on speech” and, further, “[t]hese statutes are plainly aimed at conduct, i.e., discrimination, not speech.” The paper then analyses that contrary to BDS supporters’ claims, BDS is forbidden under New York’s Human Rights Law Section 296(13)(i) which declares it “an unlawful discriminatory practice for any person to boycott or blacklist, or to refuse to buy from, sell to or trade with, or otherwise discriminate against any person, because of…national origin.” It cites Scott v. Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co., 86 N.Y.2d 429, 435-6 (1995) that New York passed this law originally to “to curtail Arab OPEC nations’ use of their ‘new-found economic strength to discriminate against and boycott certain religious and ethnic groups,’ namely Jewish-owned businesses.” It also notes that pro-BDS groups claim their actions are not prohibited by this law because of “the Israeli government’s failure to comply with international rights and its failure to respect the rights of Palestinians.” The paper cites case law debunking this fallacious notion and concludes that whether the impetus of pro-BDS groups is bigotry or disagreement with the actions of the Israeli government is irrelevant. Finally, the paper undercuts BDS supporters final argument that because no court has ruled that boycotts of Israel or Israeli goods violate the Human Rights Law, therefore BDS will not be successfully challenged in court. It states simply that this argument adds nothing to Palestine Legal and CCR’s argument because “the converse is also true: no court has ruled that such boycotts do not violate the law…this is likely due to the fact that, despite the clamoring of BDS advocates, New York businesses have consistently opted to comply with the law instead of boycotting.” The paper concludes,“Indeed, The Lawfare Project would welcome a test case, but would pity the company that engages in discriminatory BDS conduct despite the staggering risk. Essentially, such a company would be hedging its bet on the prospect of a judicial determination that New York’s ‘Arab League Boycott’ law does not prohibit the Palestinian (Arab)-inspired boycott of Israeli (Jewish) businesses.”