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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Electronic Intifada.

A court in Washington, D.C., has entirely dismissed a lawsuit against the American Studies Association over its support of an academic boycott of Israel.

The lawsuit, which was filed in 2016 by Israel advocates, has now failed three separate times in court – a significant defeat for the Israel lobby’s attempt to punish scholars who back Palestinian rights.

“The court found that the claims primarily arose from advocacy on an issue of public interest and were not likely to succeed,” stated the Center for Constitutional Rights.

In a 2013 referendum, members of the American Studies Association overwhelmingly endorsed an academic boycott of Israel.

The vote followed an endorsement of the boycott by the association’s governing body.

Declaring the boycott an ethical stance, the ASA said that it “represents a principle of solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom and an aspiration to enlarge that freedom for all, including Palestinians.”

Israel advocates within the association, however, jumped into action to persecute colleagues who dared to criticize Israel.

Using a tactic known as lawfare, in which Israel lobby groups use legal means to harass and silence supporters of Palestinian rights, the plaintiffs claimed that the boycott resolution was brought by “insurgents” within the association who attempted to “subvert and change the ASA’s purpose” into a political advocacy organization.

The plaintiffs alleged that a “cabal” of leaders from the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) surreptitiously took over the ASA and used their positions on its executive committee and national council to foist the boycott resolution on the association’s unsuspecting membership, misspending ASA money in the process.

A federal court threw out a key claim in the lawsuit in 2017, ruling that the ASA’s endorsement of the boycott was not contrary to the association’s charter.

After the lawsuit was initially dismissed in 2019, the plaintiffs filed an appeal, and opened a second case in the Washington, DC Superior Court.

Later that year, the Superior Court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss in part, but denied their anti-SLAPP motion.

SLAPP suits are intended to suppress free speech and force people or organizations into spending money defending themselves in court.

But defendants appealed the denial of that anti-SLAPP motion.

The DC Court of Appeals ordered the court to reanalyze the case, resulting in the most recent ruling, notes the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The force behind the lawsuit was the Louis D. Brandeis Center, an Israel advocacy organization that has for years worked to smear Palestine solidarity activism as anti-Semitism, and attempts to suppress it with frivolous lawsuits and bogus civil rights complaints.

The organization’s former president, attorney Kenneth Marcus, represented the plaintiffs until February 2018 – when he was appointed as the Trump administration’s top civil rights enforcer at the US Department of Education.

After resigning from his position in 2020, Marcus returned to lead the Louis D. Brandeis Center.

“The purpose of lawsuits like these are really to harass and intimidate activists who support rights anywhere, but freedom and justice in Palestine in particular,” Astha Sharma Pokharel, staff lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, told The Electronic Intifada.

Along with the anti-SLAPP laws that are designed to deter these kinds of attacks, the court’s dismissal “sends a message to Palestinian rights advocates that they are supported and that the law is on their side,” Sharma Pokharel added.

‘A Losing Strategy’

The Center for Constitutional Rights represented Steven Salaita, one of the defendants targeted by this lawsuit.

In 2014, Salaita was fired by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for social media comments criticizing Israel’s assault on Gaza that year.

He sued the university for breach of contract, alleging administrators acted under pressure from pro-Israel donors, later settling the case.

Salaita then found himself targeted by the lawsuit against the American Studies Association.

He told The Electronic Intifada this week that he was relieved that the DC court dismissed the lawsuit against the American Studies Association.

“It was something hanging over my head and I dislike being obliged to deal with people who deny my humanity,” Salaita said.

“I don’t know what message [Israel lawfare groups] will hear – probably nothing – but it should send them the message that it’s a losing strategy,” he said.

“More importantly, it should send them the message that even if their nonsense were to be effective according to judicial bodies in the United States, it still won’t stop anybody from agitating against the Israeli state.”

Boycotts, he added, are “designed to bypass and subvert state institutions.”

GLASGOW, Scotland—Speaking at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) on November 1, U.S. President Joe Biden said he wants the United States to commit $3 billion toward helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change. But the administration’s climate negotiators in Glasgow are pushing to keep adaptation financing inadequate. 

Delegations from more than 190 countries are deliberating on issues that weren’t resolved in the first week of COP26, the largest annual climate-change conference organized under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate finance to assist developing countries adapt to a changing world and carbon markets to trade emission reduction credits remain on the table.

At a November 9 closed-door negotiation meeting, the United States asked for a revision of references on adaptation finance’s inadequacy, as well as the request to double adaptation finance. This comes despite Biden having publicly spoken of quadrupling U.S. climate-finance contributions.

Early this year, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) noted adaptation costs in developing countries are “five to 10 times greater than current public adaptation finance flows.” The UNEP also said the adaptation finance gap is “widening.”

But developed countries like the United States, Canada and those in the European Union resisted the adoption of language that would have called for doubling adaptation finance.

Developing Countries Take Offense

According to an observer who was present in the negotiation room, Egyptian negotiators expressed they found it difficult to understand why developed countries find the term “doubling” offensive. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi delegates said in the same meeting that doubling should be replaced with “quadrupling.” Bangladesh is uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, given how sea-level rise threatens to drown large sections of the country. 

Plus, a few days ago, the chair of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Implementation allowed informal consultations on the composition of the Adaptation Fund’s board at the behest of the United States.

The Adaptation Fund was formed under the Kyoto Protocol, an international climate treaty designed to help developing countries adapt to a quickly warming world. 

According to delegates of developing countries and observers in negotiation rooms at COP26, the United States plans to make a pledge to the Fund on the condition that non-Kyoto Protocol parties are allowed to be elected to the Board and that the Board composition be changed to equal representation between developed and developing countries. 

A U.S. State Department representative who speaks on behalf of U.S. negotiators at COP26 declined to comment.

Liane Schalatek, associate director of Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German foundation based in Washington, D.C., noted how the Adaptation Fund is the only climate fund that has “equitable representation” on its board. Currently, developing countries hold two-thirds of board seats. 

Tarun Gopalakrishnan, pre-doctoral fellow at the Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts, said the Adaptation Fund’s board comprises strong representation from developing, least developed and highly vulnerable countries. 

“More finance should be welcome, but [the board’s] uniqueness should not be diluted,” Gopalakrishnan added.

Other dedicated climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Climate Investment Fund (CIF) have equal representation between developed and developing countries. Because decisions are made by consensus, opinions of both groups carry equal weight. 

Even with respect to multilateral development banks’ climate funding, developed countries have decision making power, Schalatek explained. Multilateral development banks include the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Schalatek said it is clear the “Adaptation Fund is a better option”, adding that developing countries have a better sense of their needs and priorities and how funding could be channeled to local communities and organizations in the most effective manner. 

‘Money As the Stick’

The other issue is the United States only wants control via the Kyoto Protocol, but not the responsibilities. 

Since the United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, it is currently not eligible to hold a board seat. But now, it wants a board seat without committing to the emission reduction that Kyoto parties had agreed to undertake.

“The U.S. is using the money as the stick,” said a delegate from a developing country. The delegate chose to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal. They added the United States is offering a one-time contribution of $50 million, which is about half of what Germany gives every year to the Adaptation Fund. 

Delegations from developing countries worry if the United States gets a seat on the Adaptation Board, approvals for climate projects in countries like Cuba could be withheld because of geopolitical reasons.

This reporter sent questions to the Adaptation Fund, but they did not respond.

More broadly, Gopalakrishnan noted adaptation finance has been inadequate because of political and technical reasons. 

“Recognizing this in a [COP26] decision is the first step to fixing the problem.”

This article was developed with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security as part of the Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) Program.

Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.

Editor’s Note: The following Prensa Latina article was originally published in Granma.

HAVANA, MAY 1—The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, spoke here today with nearly 300 friends of the island from the United States and accompanying the fight against the blockade.

At the Palace of the Revolution, the participants spoke about their commitment to Cuba, to fight with more force against the inhuman U.S. blockade, to add more young people to this battle, about socialism and the example that the island represents.

During the dialogue, U.S. activist Manolo de los Santos said that the experience of these days in Cuba has been wonderful, because they live the truth of the people, in the midst of the difficult economic times they are going through, detailed the Presidency of the Republic on Twitter.

“We have witnessed the great strength of the Cuban people, how they resist and bring out the best of their creativity,” stressed the co-executive director of The People’s Forum.

Our commitment upon returning, he said, will not only be to raise our voice, but to organize a different political project in the United States, and we will always be by Cuba’s side.

Since April 24, one of the largest delegations to visit the country in decades has been in the Caribbean nation, with the aim of renewing the ties of solidarity between the people of Cuba and the United States despite the aggressive foreign policy of U.S. President Joe Biden.

It is made up of young people who are visiting Cuba for the first time and others with a long history of solidarity and accompaniment towards the Cuban Revolution.