Israel Is Widely Criticized for Labeling Palestinian
Human Rights Groups "Terrorists"
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
December 2021
On Oct. 19, the Israeli Ministry of Defense issued a military order declaring key
Palestinian human rights organizations to be “terrorist organizations.” The named
groups include: Defense for Children International-Palestine, Al-Haq, Addameer,
Bison, the Union of Agricultural Working Committees, and the Union of Palestinian
Women’s Committees. The declaration effectively outlaws these groups.
This action has been widely criticized. The American Friends Service Committee
(AFSC), a Quaker organization that has been working with Israelis and
Palestinians since 1948, points out that, “The Israeli government has targeted
these organizations for decades because of their human rights activism. They have
arrested and detained staff, raided offices and made similar accusations to the
organizations’ donors.” Michael Merryman-Lotze, Middle East program director of
AFSC said, “This is an outrageous and dangerous escalation of Israel’s attacks on
civil society.”
The U.N. Human Rights Office in the Palestinian Territories declared: “Counter-
terrorism legislation must not be used to constrain legitimate human rights and
humanitarian work. These designations are the latest development in a long
stigmatizing campaign against these and other organizations, damaging their
ability to deliver on their crucial work.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International, which work with some of the targeted groups, issued a joint
statement: “This appalling and unjust decision is an attack by the Israeli
government on the international human rights movement. For decades, the Israeli
government has systematically sought to muzzle human rights monitoring.”
In Israel, 25 human rights organizations, including B’Tselem, called the
“terrorist” designation “a draconian measure that criminalizes critical human
rights work. Criminalizing such work is an act of cowardice, characteristic of
repressive authoritarian regimes.” In the U.S., a broad coalition of more than
288 social justice, civil rights and human rights groups called on the Biden
administration to condemn the Israeli government’s “terrorist” designation. The
statement was initiated by, among other groups, Jewish Voice for Peace Action.
Among those joining this effort are Amnesty USA, Global Ministries of the
Disciples of Christ, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Center for Jewish Non-
violence, the Unitarian-Universalist Service Committee and the Armenian-American
action Network.
Israel, critics charge, hoped that a classified Shin Bet document would convince
European governments to stop funding Palestinian human rights groups. The Israeli
magazine +972 (Nov. 4, 2021) got hold of the dossier’s testimonies and found no
evidence to justify Israel’s claims. It declared that, “Israel has failed to
present any documents directly or indirectly linking the six organizations to the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) or to any violent activity…
Contrary to the Defense Ministry’s claims, the dossier did not provide a single
piece of evidence proving the six organizations diverted their funds to the PFLP
or to violent activities.”
European governments also found no evidence to confirm Israel’s charges against
the human rights organizations. +972 reports: “Belgium’s Minister of Development
Cooperation Meryame Kitir said, ‘Our investigation revealed that there is not a
single piece of concrete evidence in the Israeli document that raises suspicions
that there was fraud in these organizations…I have determined that there is no
reason to freeze funding for these organizations.’ Dutch Foreign Minister Sigrid
Kaag said: ‘There is no concrete evidence linking the organizations to the PFLP’…
A senior European official we spoke to this week said, ‘The document provided to
us by Israel in May was unconvincing, to say the least. We contacted the Israelis
again immediately after the announcement to ask for more information, but…we have
not received anything.’”
John Dugard, former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory, and author of the book, “Confronting Apartheid: A Personal
History of South Africa, Namibia and Palestine,” notes that, “When I was U.N.
Special Rapporteur, I reported that I had no doubt that Israel’s law and
practices constituted apartheid, an assessment based on forty years of living
under apartheid in South Africa and directing a human rights advocacy body for
more than a decade.”
Israel’s outlawing of Palestinian human rights groups, Dugard points out, is even
more extreme than South Africa’s response to such groups: “South Africa had
legislation resembling the 2016 Israeli law, which allowed it to declare
organizations unlawful. In the late 1970s, at the height of apartheid, a number
of human rights organizations were established, mainly funded by the U.S. The
apartheid regime made it clear it disliked these organizations, but it didn’t
outlaw them.” South Africa was, he recalls, concerned with how the world viewed
it. “Israel,” in his view, “is not concerned about its image.”
Israeli human rights activist Jeff Halper notes that, “The irony of a state that
uses terrorism routinely against a civilian population held under conditions of
imprisonment, robbed of their human and civil rights, robbed of their lands and
lives, victims of a relentless policy of home demolitions, labeling a legitimate
part of a liberation movement ‘terrorist’ is not lost on us.” ***
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