I am a political activist who has worked and lived in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This blog chronicles my time in Palestine and also provides news and analysis about Palestine and the situation on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
BDS Victory in Australia: Shurat HaDin abandons legal case against Sydney academic Jake Lynch and BDS!
Dear friends, Brilliant News!! Shurat HaDin, an Israeli based legal group has abandoned its failing case against Sydney academic, Jake Lynch. As I noted in my recent article published by Electronic Intifada, Shurat HaDin's legal case brought against Jake over his
support for the Palestinian call for the boycott of Israel suffered a
huge setback in April when Federal Court Magistrate, Justice Alan Robertson struck out huge sways of their complaint because they hadn’t established any facts pertinent to the case (ie. establishing that Jake had allegedly breached the Racial Discrimination Act). The case suffered a further set back, when in the wake of the sections being struck out, four of the original five complainants signaled
their intention to withdraw. Earlier this week, Jake's lawyers moved to have the case dismissed arguing that there were no "natural person" left in the case, who were allegedly impacted by Jake's support for BDS. Shurat HaDin has now decided to abandon the case. While Shurat HaDin has sought to spin their defeat, saying that Jake won on a technicality, anyone following the case knows that this is just that - spin. Shurat HaDin's case floundered from the very beginning, failing repeatedly to show that Jake had breached the Racial Discrimination Act.
As Jake has noted this is a very big victory for Palestine activists and the BDS campaign in Australia. It is also a victory for free speech and academic freedom.
I have included below, Jake Lynch's statement on the court victory, as well as The Guardian's article on Shurat HaDin's abandonment of the case. For more information on the case, here are links to my recent Electronic Intifada article on the case, as well as my articles in Red Flag and Overland.
Major setback for Israel- backed group's efforst to criminalise BDS in Australia (click here)
BDS and Zionist lawfare in Australia: Palestine solidarity still under attack (click here)
BDS and Lawfare in Australia: Shurat HaDin launch spurious case against Palestine activist (click here)
BDS, Lawfare & Free speech: Growing support for BDS campaigners (click here)
The Australian newspaper and BDS: A case study in obsession (click here)
in solidarity, Kim
***
JAKE LYNCH'S STATEMENT ON HIS LEGAL VICTORY:
VICTORY! Thursday July 10th, 2014
My lawyer and the lawyer for Shurat HaDin have agreed that the
proceeding by Shurat HaDin be dismissed for lack of standing. And they
have agreed for the court to make orders
that Shurat HaDin pay my costs of the application for dismissal of the
case, and my costs of the proceedings that are not otherwise subject to
earlier cost orders.
Judge Alan Robertson will make the orders in the Federal Court in Sydney, on Wednesday July 16th at 9.30am.
This comprehensive legal victory represents complete vindication for
the principled stance I have taken in fighting off a despicable attack
on political freedom in Australia.
It gives the green light for
many more Australians to take their own action in solidarity with the
Palestinian struggle for rights and freedoms we are lucky enough to be
able to take for granted.
Shurat HaDin is a foreign agency,
with admitted past links with the Israeli state, which wanted to use the
Australian courts to stifle the growing movement of worldwide political
activism for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
The case began
with the smear that BDS advocates are motivated by racism. That was
accepted by many of Australia’s leading politicians, to their discredit,
when they signed up to the so-called ‘London Declaration on
Anti-Semitism’.
But the attempt to make it stick in court
proved a bridge too far. Legal process requires evidence, and logical
argument. Once exposed to that test, a claim that passed muster in the
corridors of Canberra immediately began to crumble.
I have
faced claims that I should be held responsible for decisions by
performing artists, such as Elvis Costello and Snoop Dogg, not to tour
Israel. There was never a shred of proof to back up any of these
allegations.
On the narrower issue of the request I received
from Professor Dan Avnon, to endorse his application for a Sir Zelman
Cowen fellowship, Shurat HaDin managed to persuade neither Avnon
himself, nor any other academic, to join their ill-conceived action.
This week’s violence
This week’s renewed wave of indiscriminate Israeli violence against
Palestinian civilians shows the urgency of taking political action to
promote peace with justice. Israel will not change its routine recourse
to militarism and lawlessness without coming under pressure.
The disavowal by the Australian government of the international legal
consensus on the occupation of Palestinian territory shows this pressure
must come from civil society. That is the rationale for BDS, as a
symbolic gesture of solidarity.
This legal victory for me, and
thousands of supporters who have stood by me and contributed to my
cause, represents both an opportunity and a challenge. Someone has to
make a change. If not us, who? If not now, when?
I would like to thank my lawyer, Yves Hazan of Hazan Hollander, for the
brilliance with which he conceptualised, developed and argued my case –
and also for his patience and consideration in explaining legal
principles in our discussions of the issues.
Thanks also to His
Honour, Judge Alan Robertson, for the fairness and rigour with which he
conducted these proceedings. The Australian public can be proud of its
Federal Court. **
Jake Lynch says Shurat HaDin has 'effectively thrown in the towel'. Photograph: Australians for Palestine
An Israeli legal centre has abandoned landmark legal action against a
Sydney academic, Jake Lynch, over his support for a boycott of Israel. Lawyers
for Lynch said they and a Tel Aviv-based legal centre, Shurat HaDin,
reached agreement on Wednesday that a racial discrimination lawsuit
against the academic should be summarily dismissed for lack of standing.
They said Shurat HaDin would pay most of Lynch’s costs. Lynch said he welcomed the news that Shurat HaDin had “effectively thrown in the towel”. “I
feel relief, and also determination to now make the most of this,
because it removes a possible excuse as to why people should shy away
from BDS [boycott, divestments and sanctions] activism. We’ve
successfully got the prospect of court action off people’s backs,” he
said. Shurat HaDin, whose mission is to “bankrupt terrorism
one lawsuit at a time”, filed the lawsuit against Lynch in October,
alleging that he had engaged in unlawful racial discrimination against
Jewish people, businesses and organisations by refusing to endorse a
fellowship application from a Hebrew University academic, Dan Avnon. Lynch,
who is an advocate of the BDS movement, refused Avnon’s request on the
basis that Hebrew University has a campus in the occupied West Bank and
had close links to the Israel Defence Force. The case was
billed as major test of the legality of the BDS movement, which seeks to
pressure the Israeli government over its continuing occupation of
Palestinian territories and advocate for a Palestinian right to return. But
Shurat HaDin suffered a major setback in April when a federal court
judge, Alan Robertson, struck out key parts of its original statement of
claim against Lynch, which sought to frame the case as a class action
on behalf of all Israelis, and included plaintiffs who Lynch had never
dealt with. Avnon himself was never a party to the case. Among
the grievances alleged in the original statement of claim was that the
BDS movement had deprived some of the plaintiffs of the chance to see
the performer Elvis Costello, who cancelled a 2010 tour of Israel in
protest at the treatment of Palestinians. All the original
plaintiffs except for Shurat HaDin withdrew from the revised lawsuit,
which Lynch said “doomed” the case, because the legal centre was not a
natural person and could not demonstrate how it was affected by his
actions. Lynch said the agreement brought to an end “the
quixotic attempt by Shurat HaDin to establish that any activism in the
cause of [BDS] must perforce be motivated by some kind of
anti-Semitism”. “They were absolutely rock solid certain at
the outset, but all their attempts to prove it in court and to amass
evidence and argument to back it up have completely crumbled,” Lynch
told Guardian Australia.
He accused Shurat HaDin of trying to
paint his decision not to support Avron’s application for a fellowship
as a denial of employment.
“The proposition put to me [by Avnon]
was that I permit him the favour of putting my name on his application
for the fellowship,” said Lynch.
“I had no power to grant him or
withhold it from him. He needed two signatures out of the academic staff
of Sydney uni, which is somewhere north of 3,000.”
A solicitor
for Shurat Hadin, Andrew Hamilton, did not respond to requests for
comment. The Israel-based head of Shurat HaDin, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner,
told The Australian that Lynch had won on a technicality. “We
are absolutely determined that Lynch committed an unlawful breach of
Australian anti-discrimination law,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner on
Thursday.
A judge is expected to make the orders early next week.
THE
Israeli legal activist group Shurat HaDin has abandoned its landmark
racial discrimination case against Sydney academic Jake Lynch over his
support for an academic boycott of the Jewish state.
The
development was claimed a complete victory by Professor Lynch, who
denies his participation in the international boycott, divestment and
sanctions campaign was racially motivated against Israeli Jews.
As
revealed by The Australian yesterday, Professor Lynch’s lawyers
recently argued in the Federal Court that there were no real, live
plaintiffs left in the case, and since it was not a natural person,
Shurat HaDin could not have standing as an aggrieved individual.
In
an admission of defeat for Shurat HaDin in a lawsuit in which it
suffered many setbacks, lawyers for it and Professor Lynch have applied
to judge Alan Robertson for the case to be summarily dismissed for lack
of standing.
While
Justice Robertson has yet to issue orders, the Israel-based head of
Shurat HaDin, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, made clear to The Australian that
this was the end of the trail.
She insisted her group had been defeated not on the merits of the case, but only on a technicality.
“We
are absolutely determined that Lynch committed an unlawful breach of
Australian anti-discrimination law,” Ms Darshan-Leitner said.
Professor
Lynch, who heads Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict
Studies, sparked controversy when he knocked back a request from Hebrew
University of Jerusalem political scientist Dan Avnon to sponsor him for
a visiting fellowship, citing his centre’s support for BDS.
Professor
Lynch described the outcome as a “comprehen-sive legal victory” that
“represents complete vindication for the principled stance I have taken
in fighting off a despicable attack on political freedom in
Australia’’. He said the group had agreed to pay his costs.
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