The Louis D. Brandeis Center is a nonprofit founded by former Trump official Kenneth Marcus that aims to stifle criticism of Israel via lawfare.
Earlier this month, the organization threatened to sue the group Film Workers For Palestine for boycotting Israeli film institutions.
In a letter, which was sent to studios, distributors, talent agencies, and film festivals, the organization claims that endorsing an Israel boycott could lead to legal consequences.
“Boycotting Jews isn’t an original idea, or, thankfully, a legal one in the United States of America,” said Brandeis Center Director of Corporate Initiatives and Senior Counsel Rory Lancman in a statement. “We caution Hollywood decision makers against submitting to pressure to effectuate this blatantly illegal blacklist of Jewish Israeli artists and institutions. As we say in our letter, we much prefer to see their work on the screen, and not them in court.”
Here’s the call, from Film Workers For Palestine, that the Brandeis Center is reacting to:
As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions. In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.
The world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, has ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza, and that Israel’s occupation and apartheid against Palestinians are unlawful. Standing for equality, justice, and freedom for all people is a profound moral duty that none of us can ignore. So too, we must speak out now against the harm done to the Palestinian people.
We answer the call of Palestinian filmmakers, who have urged the international film industry to refuse silence, racism, and dehumanization, as well as to ‘do everything humanly possible’ to end complicity in their oppression.
Inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid who refused to screen their films in apartheid South Africa, we pledge not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions—including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies—that are implicated* in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.
“Brandeis threatens anyone who dares speak out against Israel’s human rights abuses — and they lose, again and again,” tweeted Palestine Legal.
Pal Legal posted a thread of recent Brandeis failures in this regard. On multiple occasions, the group tried to stop writer Mohammed el-Kurd from speaking on university campuses.
The group claimed that el-Kurd was “notorious for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including modern day blood libels, against Jews” and that his appearances on campuses threatened to “poison the atmosphere against Jewish students.”
Earlier this year, Brandeis called on the Trump administration to investigate K-12 DEI programs for “promoting antisemitism.”
“If President Trump is serious about ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling, he should start with some of the antisemitic educators whom we have found,” declared Marcus.
Despite the Brandeis Center’s assertion that embracing the BDS movement is illegal, the effort to boycott Israel is gaining a level of mainstream acceptance that felt impossible just a few years ago.
Guardian correspondent David Smith notes that there’s been a flurry of calls and letters in recent months, effectively arguing for Israel to be targeted for boycott over its genocide.
These include the aforementioned film effort, a letter signed by hundreds of writers, and campaigns to kick the country out of UEFA and Eurovision.
“It is now 20 years since Palestinian civil society organisations called for BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) as a form of non-violent pressure on Israel, taking the South African anti-apartheid movement as their inspiration and calling for an end to Israel’s occupation and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. BDS was reviled by conservatives and opposed by the Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Dozens of US states, red and blue, have passed laws over the years to penalize boycotts of Israel,” writes Smith.
“But a combination of generational change, revulsion at the events in Gaza and alienation caused by Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme rightwing government is giving BDS new traction, even if many of the actions to target Israel are not formally taking place under the movement’s banner,” he continued.
Taking aim at F-35s
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) has launched a Week of Action against F-35s from October 13-18.
A June 2024 UN report found that F-35s, which are produced by Lockheed Martin, have been used in attacks on Gaza that have “led to high numbers of civilian fatalities and widespread destruction of civilian objects.”
Last year a UN General Assembly Resolution demanded that states, “Take steps towards ceasing […]the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
“F-35 fighter jets are crucial for apartheid Israel to carry out its genocide against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza,” said the BNC in a statement. “The many countries involved in building and purchasing the US-produced F-35 jets are complicit in Israel’s genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation.”
“During this week of action, grassroots movements, trade unions and other civil society organizations will escalate pressure through peaceful disruptions, email storms (details below) , and/or mass protests against complicit ministries, members of parliaments and manufacturing companies,” it continued.
Further Reading
- Common Dreams: Mahmoud Khalil and the Israelification of the US: Wake Up!
- Ed Source: Faculty react anxiously to Trump administration antisemitism probe at CSU
- Columbia Spectator: Columbia postponed campus access expansion plans amid increased ICE activity, Shipman says
- The Guardian: Boycotting Israel has gone mainstream: ‘We’ve never seen such traction before’
- TNR: Trump’s Hunt for Antifa Is Already Falling Apart
- CrimeThInc: We Shut Elbit Down!
Re the Power part of “Power and Pushback”: Let’s say you have one of those new-fangled enhanced reality goggles from Apple, you know, the ones with little quantum computers that let you see things the way they really are. You put on a pair and examine the Trump plan for Gaza. What do you see?
Israel has finally succeeded in turning the entire world into low wage security police for its occupation. They started with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which acts as a sort of mall cop for the IDF. Then Israel tried to turn Hamas into a branch of its security apparatus but when it became clear that Hamas didn’t want the job they convinced the world to do the occupation for them, and if the world didn’t go along they would simply resume killing people. From a recent New Yorker article:
“Strip away the framing [ of Trumps peace plan ] , and the design is clear. Gaza is to be managed from the outside, without a locally elected government. The P.A. is told to make reforms—anti-corruption and fiscal-transparency measures, increased judicial independence, a path to elections—before it can even be considered for a role in Gaza’s governance. Hamas is removed from political life by decree. Core questions—borders, sovereignty, refugees—are deferred. In this architecture, Gaza becomes a security-first regime, where aid, reconstruction, and “transition” are subordinated to Israeli security metrics under the oversight of the U.S. and its partners. Palestinians are offered administration without authority. The occupation is dressed in managerial language.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/gazas-broken-politics
Just tell Marcus to GFH.
So, Marcus is creating sloppy strawman arguments again to defend aparthied and genocide. Boycotting all Israeli nationals “might” violate provisions of US tax credit statutes. So what? Claiborne Hardware said that the NAACP boycott of all white-owned businesses violated the federal and state antitrust laws. Then SCOTUS ruled that boycotts over the lengthy list of demands for equality and racial justice were legally protected. FYI, Israeli laws collect taxes against all Hollywood artists, producers, and unions and have statutes that grant tax credits they deliberately withold from Palestinians on the basis of nationality. Marcus is not sending them warning letters.
Marcus should worry about his own equal right to oppose compulsory obedience to Christian decrees issued by bureaucrats. Trump just adopted National Security Policy Directive-7 that creates a terrorist watchlist to take punitive actions against anyone they consider anti-Christian. See Senators Warn Trump Administration Is Developing Secret Watchlist of Americans | Truthout
The threat of The Louis D. Brandeis Center would be more credible if the Center explained a justiciable claim and identified someone that had standing to bring a lawsuit that was based on the claim.