On 19 October 2021 the Israeli Defence Minister announced that six Palestinian Non-Governmental Organisations would be designated as ‘terrorist’. This designation applied only to Israeli territory but a subsequent military order extended this designation to cover the West Bank area. The six organisations are Addameer, Defence for Children International Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees, the Bisan Centre, Al-Haq and the Union of Palestinian Womens Committees.
This drastic step, that renders the six organisations liable to immediate enforcement action, was not taken suddenly. Five months earlier the Israeli government had circulated a 74-page dossier among European governments that claimed to provide evidence for proscribing those organisations. Those governments were not impressed, however and none of them endorsed the move. The Israeli government is reported HERE as having had another go in January 2022, presenting another unconvincing dossier.
The international mobilisation was swift. The move was described by the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem as ‘an act characteristic of totalitarian regimes’.The six organisations themselves expressed their opposition in a webinar HERE. In Britain, the response of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign can be found HERE, while a statement from the TUC and eleven major trade unions can be found HERE. A statement from members of Parliaments around Europe – on this and other issues – is HERE. You can sign a petition #Standwiththe6 HERE.
The six organisations filed a formal objection to the military order – read it HERE. They highlighted that they were given no opportunity to see the ‘evidence’ against them.
On 3 March 2022 Michele Bachelet, UN Commissioner for Human Rights, said: “These designation decisions were based on vague and unsubstantiated allegations; my Office remains unaware of any credible evidence to support these accusations. A number of member states, notably those providing financial support to these organisations, have also questioned the basis for these decisions. After the end of the reporting period, the Israeli military denied a request by human rights organisations to share the evidence justifying the decisions, citing threats to national security. These designations and declarations by Israeli authorities raise serious concerns that counter-terrorism legislation and military orders are being used to halt, restrict or criminalise legitimate human rights and humanitarian work, including important work on accountability. These measures, adding to a series of actions undermining civil society orgs working for the human rights of Palestinians, constitute an attack on human rights defenders, & seriously inhibit freedoms of association, opinion & expression and the right to public participation.. I call upon Israel to revoke the designations against Palestinian human rights and humanitarian organisations as terrorist or unlawful organisations, absent sufficient evidentiary basis for them.”
In April 2022 the Union of Agricultural Workers Committee was awarded one of the International Ockenden prizes for its garden project in Hebron (see HERE). A penny also dropped with the European Union, who as of July 2022 resumed their support for Al-Haq and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The EU had stopped funding these organisations under pressure from Israel, but now agreed not just that there was ‘no suspicions of irregularities’, but even that they ‘did not find sufficient ground to open an investigation’.
The resumption of international support, however, has not stopped the Israeli government from further actions. On 18 August 2022 Israeli soldiers invaded the offices of all the organisations, confiscating equipment and sealing the offices closed. The raids included the complete takeover for two hours of St Andrew’s Anglican church in Ramallah (from whom Al-Haq rents an office with a separate entrance). The UN’s special rapporteur for Palestine denounced the raids: “this new illegal action bears testament to their outstanding work for justice and human rights, and the moral panic they are causing the occupier.”