[ Most of the Palestinian human rights groups that were ransacked
on August 18 have been in Israel’s crosshairs since last October,
when Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz baselessly declared that
Israel had designated six of those groups under its 2016 Counter
Terrorism Law as “terrorist organizations”]
[[link removed]]

ISRAELI RAID ON SEVEN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS IS ATTACK ON PALESTINIAN
CIVIL SOCIETY  
[[link removed]]


 

Marjorie Cohn
August 22, 2022
Truthout
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_ Most of the Palestinian human rights groups that were ransacked on
August 18 have been in Israel’s crosshairs since last October, when
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz baselessly declared that Israel
had designated six of those groups under its 2016 Counter Terrorism
Law as “terrorist organizations” _

Activists hang a poster at the entrance to Al-Haq Human Rights
Organization after it was raided and shut down by Israeli Military
forces, on August 18, 2022, in Ramallah, Palestine. Six of the seven
groups raided had previously been given a "terrorist" la, ILIA
YEFIMOVICH / PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

 

On August 18, Israel conducted armed raids in the occupied West Bank,
ransacking and shuttering the offices of seven leading Palestinian
human rights organizations. Three days later, the directors of two of
those groups
[[link removed]] were
summoned for interrogation by the Israeli Occupying Forces.

The raids began more than a week after the Israel Defense Forces had
killed dozens of Palestinians, including 17 children
[[link removed]],
during airstrikes on Gaza.

Most of the Palestinian human rights groups that were ransacked on
August 18 have been in Israel’s crosshairs since last October, when
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz baselessly declared that Israel
had designated six of those groups under its 2016 Counter Terrorism
Law as “terrorist organizations
[[link removed]]”
— with links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), a leftist Palestinian political party with a military wing. On
November 3, 2021, the six groups were declared “unlawful
associations” by the Israeli military commander in the occupied West
Bank. But in the 10 months since the “terrorist” designations, the
Israeli government has failed to provide competent evidence linking
the six groups to the PFLP. A classified CIA report says it could not
find any evidence
[[link removed]] to
support the designations.

Israel’s Raids Pose “Existential Threat” to Palestinian Civil
Society

The day after the Israeli raids, the six designated organizations
issued a joint statement
[[link removed]] saying, “Israel’s
unlawful and aggressive incursion poses an existential threat to
Palestinian civil society. The attack seeks to dismantle crucial
mechanisms that work to uphold human rights and end Israel’s settler
colonial and apartheid regime, which systematically denies the
Palestinian people their right to self-determination and the right of
refugees to return.” The groups decried the “failure of the
international community to take meaningful concrete actions to hold
Israel accountable for designating the organizations as grave
violations of international law.”

Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, Omar Shakir
[[link removed]],
[[link removed]] said
[[link removed]] the
raids constituted “an attack on the global human rights movement,”
adding, “Palestinian civil society today faces an existential
threat.”

“The raid on the seven Palestinian organizations’ offices —
confiscating files and stealing computers and other equipment,
breaking furniture and sealing the doors — is … a political
message to the Palestinian Authority that the Israeli military
commander is still the sovereign in the occupied Palestinian
territory,” Sahar Francis, general director of Addameer Prisoner
Support and Human Rights Association, one of the six designated
groups, wrote in an email to _Truthout_.

“It sends a message as well to the EU countries who showed their
support and decided to continue their relationship with the NGOs
[non-governmental organizations] that we do not care for your decision
so we will implement our ‘terrorist’ designation,” Frances
added.

Addameer provides legal support to and works to end Israel’s torture
of Palestinian prisoners. The other designated organizations include
Al-Haq, which works to hold Israel accountable in the International
Criminal Court (ICC), Bisan Center for Research and Development (which
creates youth programs and works for socioeconomic rights), Defense
for Children International — Palestine (which exposes human rights
violations against children held in Israeli military detention), Union
of Agricultural Work Committees (which confronts illegal Israeli
settlement expansion and land theft), and Union of Palestinian
Women’s Committees (which helps empower Palestinian women to become
economically independent and combat gender discrimination).

The seventh group raided by Israeli forces is Health Work Committees
(which provides health services and helps the poor and marginalized
obtain social rights). Mazen Rantisi, head of the board of the Health
Work Committees, said Israel’s closures of the groups were aimed at
“destroying Palestinian society
[[link removed]].”

Al-Haq called on the international community
[[link removed]] to implement “concrete
measures, such as trade restrictions and arms embargoes, to ensure
that Israel is held internationally responsible for its ongoing
systematic inhumane acts of apartheid, including the persecution of
Palestinian human rights defenders.” In addition, Al-Haq urged the
States Parties and Prosecutor of the ICC to intervene and submit
evidence to the Court.

Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which
represents the six designated organizations, said
[[link removed]],
“After 10 European states [Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany,
Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden] rejected
Israel’s declarations of the groups as ‘terrorist
organizations,’ pronounced in the absence of any evidence, Israel
continues to persecute Palestinian human rights and civil society
groups with the clear aim of silencing any criticism against it.”

Adalah noted, “The effort is led by a Defense Minister, Benny Gantz,
suspected of committing war crimes, in an attempt to terrorize those
who will testify against him and his actions,” adding that the
groups’ appeals were dismissed with no opportunity to present a
defense against the “secret evidence” on which their designations
were based.

“This attack on Palestinian civil society is an attack on the entire
Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” Adalah
stated. “Standing aside or staying silent constitutes active
cooperation with the persecution and oppression of human rights
defenders.”

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, said in a
statement
[[link removed]] that
it stands in solidarity with the raided organizations. “We will
continue to work with our colleagues in the Palestinian NGOs to
dismantle the apartheid regime,” it pledged. “This regime
considers violent repression a legitimate tool to control
Palestinians, yet defines non-violent civil activity as terrorism.”

The foreign ministries of France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland,
Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden issued a joint statement
[[link removed]] saying
that “no substantial information” has been received from Israel
that would justify designating the groups as “terrorist”
organizations. The raids “are not acceptable,” they asserted in
the statement. “We stand firm with NGOs to uphold the right to
freedom of expression and association in the [occupied Palestinian
territory].”

Amna Guellali, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Middle
East and North Africa stated
[[link removed]],
“These organizations have contributed enormously to human rights in
the [occupied Palestinian territory] and across the globe, yet Israeli
army boots trample all over their work. Amnesty International stands
proudly in solidarity with our Palestinian partners and calls on all
governments to condemn the Israeli army’s attack on Palestinian
civil society.” Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians constitutes
grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention (which amount to war
crimes) and form part of the system of apartheid that oppresses the
Palestinians, according to Amnesty International.

Biden Administration Refuses to Condemn the Raids

On July 18, 22 members of the U.S. Congress wrote a letter
[[link removed]] to
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Director of National
Intelligence Avril Haines, urging them to “publicly reject”
Israel’s terrorist designation of “the six prominent Palestinian
human rights organizations” and “call on the Israeli government to
reverse course.” Their plea was ignored.

The Biden administration also refuses to condemn Israel’s illegal
raids. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the United States
was “concerned” about the raids, stating in a press briefing
[[link removed]] that
“independent civil society organizations in the West Bank and Israel
must be able to continue their important work,” adding that civil
society groups are “an integral element to thriving democracies the
world over, and of course that applies here.” But, he stated, they
are awaiting further information from Israel. Price said
[[link removed]] “Israel
cites security concerns, Israel cites terrorist threats, we will be
looking to the information that they provide to us, as we form our own
judgment regarding these organizations and recent actions.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) said in a statement
[[link removed]], “[The
raids] are a direct result of the Biden administration’s complete
failure to defend Palestinian human rights against racism and ethnic
cleansing. The silence by our country is enabling more death and
violence. We must hold Israel accountable.”

Progressive organizations in the United States urged the Biden
administration to condemn Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian NGOs.
The Center for Constitutional Rights said
[[link removed]] that
Israel’s “physical assault” on the “prominent Palestinian
civil society organizations must be urgently condemned by the Biden
administration in the strongest terms, with concrete actions in
response to the criminalization of human rights defenders to
follow.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) expressed solidarity with the targeted
groups, saying in a statement
[[link removed]],
“Silencing human rights organizations will put millions of
Palestinians in even more danger.” JVP Executive Director Stephanie
Fox said, “This egregious attack by the Israeli government on human
rights defenders is the latest in decades of attacks on Palestinian
civil society. Silencing and intimidating human rights organizations
is a classic tactic of states trying to avoid accountability for their
war crimes. We stand with, and will continue to work alongside, the
brave groups that are working to support Palestinians and expose
Israeli apartheid.”

JVP urged congressional action
[[link removed]]: “The
Israeli government is openly and blatantly working to erase
documentation and exposure of its violent apartheid regime. A regime
that the U.S. funds with $3.8 billion every single year. We
desperately need members of Congress to start speaking out NOW.”

“The U.S. must act immediately to stop Israel’s rapidly advancing
attack on Palestinian civil society. … Much of the work of these
organizations involves monitoring and documentation of human rights
violations. This work is vital given Israel’s policy of prohibiting
international investigative bodies from accessing the occupied
territory,” the National Lawyers Guild wrote in a letter
[[link removed]] to
Blinken on August 22. “The State Department must comprehensively
review the entirety of Israel’s human rights records in light of the
Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits providing assistance to a
country that engages in a systematic pattern of human rights
violations.”

UN High Commissioner, Human Rights Committee, Human Rights Experts
Decry Lack of Evidence for Designations

On February 23, Michele Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, reported
[[link removed]] that
the terrorist designations “raise serious concerns” that they are
“being used to halt, restrict or criminalize legitimate human rights
and humanitarian work.” The designations, she wrote, “were based
on vague and unsubstantiated reasons” and her office “was not
aware of any credible evidence to support those accusations.”
Bachelet said they “constitute an attack on human rights defenders
and seriously inhibit freedoms of association, opinion and expression
and the right to public participation.”

On March 30, the UN Human Rights Committee, which administers the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), said
[[link removed]] the
use of secret evidence for the terrorist designations violates the
right to a fair trial.

On April 25, 12 UN human rights experts called on the international
community
[[link removed]] to:
publicly conclude that Israel had not substantiated its terrorism
allegations against the six groups; resume, continue and increase
financial support to those groups; and demand that Israel retract the
designations and cease harassment of Palestinian, Israeli and
international human rights organizations.

As of August 18, when Israeli forces raided and shuttered the offices
of the seven Palestinian human rights organizations, Israel still had
not come forward with evidence to support its “terrorist”
designations. If President Joe Biden told Israel to lift those
designations, it would have to comply because the United States
financially enables its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.
But like his predecessors, Biden will continue the U.S.’s uncritical
support for the brutal Israeli regime.

_Marjorie Cohn [[link removed]] is professor emerita at
Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National
Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards
of Assange Defense [[link removed]] and Veterans For
Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic
Lawyers. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral
and Geopolitical Issues
[[link removed]].
She is co-host of “Law and Disorder [[link removed]]”
radio._

_Copyright ©__ __Truthout_ [[link removed]]_._ Reprinted
with permission. May not be reprinted without permission.
Truthout publishes a variety of hard-hitting news stories and critical
analysis pieces every day. To keep up-to-date, sign up for our
newsletter by clicking here
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* israeli-palestinian conflict
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* Palestinian rights
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* Israeli apartheid
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