Former IDF soldier sues BDS activist who slandered her online for $6m.
Former IDF lone soldier Rebecca Ram filed on Tuesday a $6 million lawsuit against Suhair Nafal, a senior member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, for slandering her online.
Ram, 26, originally from California, made Aliyah in 2012. She enlisted as an instructor to the IDF Education and Youth Corps.
While Ram never took part in any combat activity, she was accused by the BDS movement of killing the Palestinian paramedic Razan Najjar during one of the March of Return demonstrations that took place near the Gaza Strip border in 2018 - three years after Ram finished her service.
The bizarre story began during Ram's service when a picture of her in basic training was uploaded to the IDF official Facebook page. In the picture, Ram is seen holding a gun and wearing protective gear.
Nafal, a Christian Palestinian who later became a central BDS activist, published in 2018 a Facebook post alleging that Ram was responsible for the death of Najjar.
The post quickly circulated among BDS activists and pro-Palestinian groups in the US, which began sending threats and harassing Ram and her family on a daily basis.
Two years later, Ram decided to fight back. She approached Shurat HaDin, a civil rights NGO that focuses on representing victims of terrorism, and asked for their help in refuting the lie that has been following her for years.
On Tuesday, the answer finally came, as Shurat HaDin filed a $6 million lawsuit against Nafal, currently residing in California, to a California court. After being made aware of the lawsuit, Nafal reportedly blocked her Facebook page in order to conceal any incriminating evidence.
In the statement of claim presented by Shurat HaDin to the California court, it was noted that Ram was clearly falsely accused, as she never reached the Gaza Strip surrounding area during her military service. Furthermore, Ram concluded her service three years prior to Najjar's death. Finally, after being released, the document stated, Ram continued to advocate for human rights and took part in joint delegations of Israelis and Arabs in Jordan and the West Bank.
"It seems like we're going back to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and to the antisemitic blood libels that belong to the past. Rebecca and her family have received death threats, only because she decided to join the IDF," Shurat HaDin founder, attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, said in a statement.
"The war on antisemitism has expanded to the legal sphere as well, and Rebecca's lawsuit is the spearhead of our struggle against the global boycott movement against Israel. This is a message to all BDS activists, who should know that they too may be held responsible for their anti-Zionist activity and may even need to pay a heavy price," Darshan-Leitner concluded.
Razan Najjar was fatally hit by a bullet shot by an IDF soldier during a series of demonstrations near the Gaza Strip border, known as the March of Return. During these protests, that began on March 30, 2018, Palestinian demonstrators clashed with IDF troops, with several reported incidents of attempts to cross the border into Israeli territory.
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