Read Darryl Li’s new op-ed: “Terrorism Torts and the Right to Colonize”

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In a powerful article on the Law & Political Economy Project blog today, legal scholar and anthropologist Darryl Li breaks down the Jewish National Fund’s lawfare attack against USCPR, which plaintiffs recently brought to the appeals court after a federal district court dismissed the lawsuit in March 2021.

Author Darryl Li cuts right to the core of the issue: Such baseless lawsuits are an attempt to tear down movement organizing through costly litigation, and in this case, uphold ongoing Israeli colonialism of native Palestinian land. He explores how Israeli settlers who are American citizens can use lawfare to assert their will to colonize, drawing connections between U.S. imperialism and Israeli settler colonialism.

“A look at the political economy of terrorism tort litigation shows how this lawsuit is not merely an instance of terrorism laws potentially trampling human rights; it is also an aggressive assertion of a right to colonize, and to do so in peace and quiet.”

Darryl Li, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Associate Member of the Law School at the University of Chicago

Read the article here, and check out Darryl’s Twitter thread below.


LEARN MORE

Learn more about this lawfare attack in the context of Israeli colonialism, including how the JNF steals native Palestinian land and plants trees to cover up ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages. USCPR Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid shares more background in this recent Mondoweiss podcast.

“We will continue to fight (the lawsuit) until the JNF has exhausted all of these means of attempting to cover up the atrocities,” Ahmad said.

Listen to the Mondoweiss podcast here.