American studies association groups describe Israeli legal threat as bullying

The American Studies Association (ASA) and two groups Friday described a legal threat by an Israeli law center against ASA as bullying and an act of intimidation.ASA condemned in a press release what is described as “scurrilous legal threats” by Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center against the oldest and largest American association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history.It said these threats are “a deplorable attempt to silence criticism of Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights.”The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Palestine Solidarity Legal Support (PSLS) have also issued statements condemning Shurat HaDin’s attempts to silence ASA because of its December vote to boycott Israeli academic institutions in protest of their complicity in Israeli human rights abuses.ASA said the vote was based “not on unlawful racial discrimination, as Shurat HaDin claims, rather, it is intended to address the very sort of racial discrimination against Palestinians that we have been accused of by Shurat HaDin and others seeking to smear the ASA and its members.”It said that Shurat HaDin’s threat of a lawsuit “is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate ASA members and others who are employing legal, nonviolent methods to protest Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, in the absence of action on the part of the United States government and international community to hold Israel accountable for its actions.”It added that the Israeli law center “seeks to bully the ASA and tie our organization up in the courts in order to discourage others from following the ASA’s lead in taking a strong stand against Israeli human rights violations.”CCR, PSLS also said in their statements that the lawsuit threat is “legal bullying.”It said Shurat HaDin’s legal threat is “the latest in a pattern of legal bullying that has escalated in the US as the movement for Palestinian rights has grown.” The groups warned that Shurat HaDin’s attempt to paint the boycott vote as anti-Semitic and discriminatory against Israelis “is not only legally bankrupt, but also trivializes important struggles against anti-Semitism and all other forms of racism.'ASA President Curtis Marez said his organization will not be intimidated by Shurat HaDin and its legal threats.He said their act is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, stressing that as an organization “we have the absolute right to oppose the discriminatory practices of Israeli academic institutions and their complicity in Israeli human rights abuses.”