Legal help for Palestine solidarity activists facing harassment and repression in the U.S. is on the way. Two leading civil liberties groups in the U.S. have launched what they’re calling the Palestine Solidarity Legal Support initiative, a resource for activists focused on Palestinian rights.

The initiative is being run by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The website dedicated to the project indicates that the initiative is focused on providing legal support for Palestine solidarity activists. The harassment and repression solidarity activists face includes spying from police agencies and legal claims filed against universities.

“This legal support initiative comes at a crucial time and responds to growing efforts to obstruct advocacy in support of Palestinian rights and brand it as anti-Semitic,” Baher Azmy, CCR’s legal director, said in a statement.

The initiative represents a concerted effort to forge coalitions between student groups, other Palestinian rights activists and civil liberties lawyers.

The formation of the Palestine Solidarity Legal Support group comes at an opportune time. For years, Israel lobby groups have filed Title VI claims against universities in California for allegedly allowing an “anti-Semitic” environment to flourish. Title VI is a key part of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits federal agencies from discriminating against anyone on the basis of race, color or national origin.

Last Spring, Israel lobby groups led by the Zionist Organization of America successfully lobbied the Obama administration’s Department of Education to extend that protection to Jewish students. That decision opened the gates for a number of so far unsuccessful Title VI claims against universities. Many of the claims of anti-Semitism center around Palestine solidarity activism like mock checkpoints and fake separation walls that Students for Justice in Palestine groups utilize to mobilize action against Israeli human rights abuses.

California campuses have been at the center of many of these battles. A Title VI complaint filed against the University of California, Berkeley alleges that the university has allowed a “hostile environment” for Jewish students to flourish.

In December 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union said that the complaint against Berkeley raises “constitutional red flags” and reflects “either a profound misunderstanding of the First Amendment, or an attempt to persuade the government to use its power to restrict speech based on its content and political viewpoint.”

In addition, California activists are battling HR 35, a bill that conflates activism with anti-Semitism and singles out the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Palestinian rights activists are also concerned about a “campus climate” report on Jewish students that recommends prohibiting so-called “hate speech.”

But it’s not only campus activists that are experiencing trouble with authorities over Palestine solidarity activism. As Mondoweiss has reported, both the New York Police Department and the Boston Police Department (working with the FBI) have spied on Palestine solidarity activists. And the “material support” law related to terrorist groups has been used in a variety of contexts to crack down on Palestine solidarity.

For instance, in 2011 the U.S. government warned activists on the U.S. Boat to Gaza that they were at risk of prosecution if they delivered “material support” to Hamas.