Judge Pitman of Western District of Texas Strikes Down Anti-Israeli Boycott Law, as Facially Unconstitutional, Victory for the BDS Movement and Bahia Amawi By Abdus Sattar Ghazali Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, April 28, 2019

Judge Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas

Marc Lamont Hill was fired by CNN, for saying Palestinians deserve equal rights	Muslim American teacher, Bahia Amawi, was fired in Texas, for not signign a pledge not to boycott Israel

Israeli Lobby in the US:

CNN Fired Marc Lamont Hill For Saying Palestinians Deserve Equal Rights, Texas Teacher Bahia Amawi Fired for Not Signing Pro-Israel Statement

Al-Jazeerah, December 19, 2018 

Editor's Note:

While brutal force has been used to create Zionist Israel and sustain it thus far, Zionist claims to Palestine are false. Actually, from the five thousand years of known written history, there has been a continuous Palestinian-Canaanite presence in the Holy Land. Despite the Zionist false claims, the ancient Israelites ruled part of the land for only 85 years (during the reign of David, Solomon, and Solomon's son).

 After that, the Egyptians conquered Palestine-Canaan in 925 BC, followed by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, before the Arab Muslim rule, starting from 636 AD.

By the Time Jesus started his mission, the three population groups of Canaanites, Palestinians, and Israelites were melted together in religion and language. Most of them became Christians when Constantine converted in 313 AD. Then, most of them became Muslims in the 7th and 8th centuries AD.

So, Palestinian Muslims, Christians, and Jews are the ones who have the right to claim descent from ancient Israelites, Palestinians, and Canaanites, not Zionists from other continents.

The following news stories are just examples of the Israeli occupation government violations of Palestinian human rights, on daily basis.

More detailed news stories can be found at the following sources: https://english.palinfo.com/, http://imemc.org/, https://paltoday.ps/ar/

 

Marc Lamont Hill was fired by CNN, for saying Palestinians deserve equal rights	Muslim American teacher, Bahia Amawi, was fired in Texas, for not signign a pledge not to boycott Israel

District Judge strikes down Texas Anti-Israel Boycott Law

Judge Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas, on Thursday, April 25, 2019, issued a 56-page opinion striking down H.B. 89, the Texas Anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Act, as facially unconstitutional.

The Court held that the Texas Anti-BDS Act “threatens to suppress unpopular ideas” and “manipulate the public debate” on Israel and Palestine “through coercion rather than persuasion.”  The Court concluded: “This the First Amendment does not allow.”
 
Every single “No Boycott of Israel” clause in every single state contact in Texas has today been stricken as unconstitutional.  The Attorney General of Texas is no longer permitted to include or enforce “No Boycott of Israel” clauses in any state contract.
 
Judge Pitman’s order came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), on behalf of Bahia Amawi, a Texas speech language pathologist who lost her job because she refused to sign a “No Boycott of Israel” clause. 
 
Arizona & Kansas Laws

In September 2018, a federal court blocked Arizona from enforcing its anti-boycott law, finding that the law likely violates the First Amendment. A federal court also issued a preliminary injunction against Kansas' enforcement of its anti-boycott law.

In January 2018, issuing the first decision of its kind, a federal judge blocked enforcement of a Kansas law targeting boycotts of Israel, ruling in an ACLU lawsuit that the First Amendment protects the right to engage in political boycotts.
 
The Kansas law requires that any person or company that contracts with the state sign a statement that they are “not currently engaged in a boycott of Israel.” The ACLU brought the lawsuit in October 2017 on behalf of Esther Koontz, a schoolteacher who refused to sign the certification.

Kansas ruling to address the wave of laws nationwide aiming to punish people who boycott Israel. It correctly recognized that forcing an individual to choose between exercising their rights and contracting with the state is unconstitutional.

Esther Koontz is a veteran math teacher and trainer who was told she would need to sign the certification statement in order to participate in a state program training other math teachers. She boycotts consumer goods and services produced by Israeli companies and international companies operating in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to protest the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians and to pressure the government to change its policies.

Anti-Boycott legislation around the country

In response to the growing movement for Palestinian freedom, over 100 measures targeting boycotts and other advocacy for Palestinian rights have been introduced in state and local legislatures and the U.S. Congress since 2014. As of April 10, 2019, 27 states have adopted anti-boycott laws, including 5 executive orders issued by governors.
Palestine Legal and other civil rights groups are fighting back. Flagging potential constitutional violations, federal courts have already stopped two states from enforcing these laws. Lawmakers in Kansas and Arizona have opted to change the laws to avoid the litigation.
 
Anti-boycott laws have been enacted in the following states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky* Louisiana*, Maryland*, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York*, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin*.
 
*The governors of Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin signed anti-boycott executive orders.
 
Although BDS hasn't inflicted significant economic damage on Israel, the movement's increasing visibility — especially on some American college campuses — has alarmed Israelis and their supporters in the United States. Many supporters of Israel have sought to portray the BDS movement as anti-Semitic.
 
LAT: Boycotts of Israel are a protected form of free speech

In an editorial Los Angeles Times wrote on July 5, 2016:
 
“In recent months, a number of states have passed laws or taken other official actions to punish companies that participate in boycotts against Israel.
 
“You don't have to support the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to be troubled when state governments in this country penalize American citizens for their political speech. As the Supreme Court has recognized, boycotts are a form of speech, protected under the Constitution.
 
“The BDS movement has been the subject of much heated debate in recent years. It calls on people and companies to boycott Israel until that country ends its occupation of "all Arab lands," ensures equal legal rights for its Arab citizens and accepts the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the former homes of their families in Israel. Some supporters of BDS accept the "two-state solution" in which Israel and an independent Palestine would exist side by side; others don't….
“Politicians are free to denounce BDS if they choose. But they must do so without infringing on the rights of their constituents, the LA Times editorial concluded.
 
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

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Muslim American Teacher, Bahia Amawi, Fired in Texas for Not Signing a Pro-Israel Statement

December 19, WASHINGTON, (PIC) + -

A Muslim American teacher working at a public school in Texas, the US, has been recently fired from her job because she refused to sign a document about not to boycott Israel, the Intercept reported on Monday.

Bahia Amawi, a children's speech specialist, refused to sign a required document certifying that she does not and will not engage in a boycott of Israel or take any action that is intended to inflict economic harm on that state.

Amawi filed a lawsuit on Monday saying that the school violated her free speech rights, guaranteed under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, by forcing her to sign the document.

The US violations against those demanding justice for the Palestinians have been stepped up recently, the latest of which was the CNN firing of anchor Marc Lamont Hill following his pro-Palestinian speech at the United Nations.

"We have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words but to commit to political action, grass-roots action, local action and international action that will give us what justice requires and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea," Hill said in the speech.

Pro-Israel groups found that a chance to strongly criticize Hill and accuse him of anti-Semitism and of "planning to destroy Israel" and "following Hamas's path".

CNN Fired Marc Lamont Hill For Saying Palestinians Deserve Equal Rights

Huffington Post, 11/29/2018

Yousef Munayyer Guest Writer Mireya Acierto via Getty Images CNN fired contributor Marc Lamont Hill for a speech he delivered at the United Nations in support of Palestinian rights.

Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Temple University and a fierce advocate for equality, was perhaps the strongest, most articulate and most passionate voice against racism and bigotry among CNN’s regular contributors. Today, CNN fired him because he believes Palestinians, too, fit into a vision where all people deserve equal rights. For CNN, that was just too much.

Marc was targeted by what can only be described as an organized campaign to silence his principled and consistent advocacy against racism and for the equal treatment of all people, including Palestinians. Wednesday, as part of a Special Meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in observance of the United Nations International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People at U.N. headquarters in New York, Marc was invited as a member of civil society to provide a statement to the forum. He did so having just returned from the Palestinian territories, and he made clear that his experience as a black American and the history of struggle against slavery and Jim Crow in the United States inform his solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The demand that Palestinians have equal rights from the river to the sea is not radical or racist or bigoted.

In his remarks, Marc outlined the need to work for the human rights of Palestinians in line with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and that this includes the rights of Palestinian refugees and Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel who face routine discrimination. The geography where this discrimination and mistreatment takes place is in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea. This includes Israel and the West Bank and Gaza. Yet critics jumped on Marc’s use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” to portray him as some sort of radical eliminationist ― someone who believes that Israel should be violently destroyed or that Jews should be forcibly expelled ― when anyone who heard his statement or knows his advocacy can tell you he is anything but.

The demand that Palestinians have equal rights from the river to the sea is not radical or racist or bigoted. Rather, anything short of that would be.

You see, Palestinians deserve to have their full human rights wherever they live. Just as we should expect nothing less than equal rights for African-Americans or any group ― from sea to shining sea ― and not just in some tiny fraction of the United States, so too should Palestinians be afforded equal treatment under the law no matter in what part of the land between the river and the sea that they live.

People should be treated as equals before the law, regardless of their identity. This isn’t rocket science, and it really isn’t difficult to comprehend unless, perhaps, you support racist and discriminatory rule.

Bloomberg via Getty Images CNN sees no cause to fire Rick Santorum, who in the past has denied that Palestinians even exist and has claimed same-sex marriage is akin to terrorism. Subscribe to The Morning Email. Wake up to the day's most important news.

The reality, of course, is that it is Israel that rules from the river to the sea, having unified the territory under its control in 1967 and has since then, a half century later, still failed to afford equal rights to the Palestinians who live under its rule. In fact, it is Israel’s continued consolidation of this entire territory, through settlements and military occupation, that has made any possibility of a two-state solution, which was already unfair to Palestinians, impossible and has made positions like the one Hill outlined in his speech not only reasonable but also the only viable and humane solution.

That is precisely why this vision of equality is threatening to those who are stalwart defenders of Israel’s apartheid policies. In fact, a poll found that if a two-state solution is unachievable ― and that should be pretty obvious at this point to anyone paying attention ― that equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians in a single-state, again from the river to the sea, was supported by 63 percent of Americans, including 74 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of independents and even 50 percent of Republicans.

Knowing well that Americans will turn against apartheid in the long run, defenders of Israel’s discriminatory policies have turned to silencing the critics they can’t best in the battle for American public opinion. Even more threatening is when people who come from various oppressed communities, who have struggled for and continue to struggle for their rights, understand the Palestinian struggle not as a nationalist one but as a rights-based struggle for equality against a fundamentally discriminatory regime.

CNN has unfortunately made it clear which side of this question it stands on. While it fired Hill for the offense of believing Palestinians should be treated equally, it continues to employ and feature serial liar Rick Santorum, who has denied that Palestinians even exist and claimed same-sex marriage was akin to terrorism.

So the message is clear and undeniable. All the despicable, offensive things that Santorum says are not fireable offenses. They have even put up with Jeffrey Lord’s horribly offensive, racist and routinely incoherent blathering for years. It took him literally tweeting a Nazi salute for CNN to decide he was unfit for its air.

But Marc Lamont Hill calls for treating Palestinians as equal human beings with equal human and civil rights, and he is out the door in 24 hours.

This is CNN, and it should be ashamed. Yousef Munayyer is the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-marc-lamont-hill-cnn_us_5c00969fe4b0d04f48b292a0

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