Palestine Legal is an

advocacy group Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the developm ...

focused on defending people who support Palestinian rights. The group is headquartered in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Its founder and director i
Dima Khalidi
a Palestinian born in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

and raised in the US.

Activity

In 2015, Palestine Legal published a report with the

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

students and faculty for

legal aid Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people who are unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to co ...

, most of them involving accusations of support for

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

and

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

. In 2019, Palestine Legal lawyers reported responding to more than 180 attempts to suppress the speech of students and academics supporting Palestinian rights. In May 2021, '' Truthout'' reported that Palestine Legal had been tracking bills that would harm advocacy for Palestinian rights since 2014. In response to the

2023 Hamas attack on Israel A series of coordinated attacks, led by the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, from the Gaza Strip into bordering areas in Israel, commenced on 7 October 2023, a Sabbath day and date of several Jewish holidays. Hamas meticulously pl ...

, Dylan Saba, an attorney with Palestine Legal, said "Glory to the resistance and the people of Palestine". Saba was described by

The Forward ''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ' ...

as part of a small segment of the

Jewish left The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, ho ...

that supported the Hamas attack.

References

Arab-American culture in Chicago Civil liberties advocacy groups in the United States Legal advocacy organizations in the United States Palestinian-American culture {{US-org-stub