'Israel’s' Closure of Palestinian NGOs 'Part of Hiding Apartheid Systems Crimes'

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After an Israeli raid, last week, labeled by the United Nations as “arbitrary”, on the offices of 7 influential Palestinian civil society organizations, the affected human rights groups called for accountability at a joint conference. "Israel’s" military followed up their raids, after shutting down the Ramallah-based offices, by threatening NGO leaders with arrest.

"Israel’s" attack on the most trusted of Palestinian civil society organizations, six of which it declared "terrorist" last year, was labeled as “totally arbitrary” by the United Nations. When "Israel" accused the organizations of funneling money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - a designated terrorist group according to "Tel Aviv" - the Israeli Shin Bet and Foreign Ministry stated that they would send “unequivocal” evidence of their conclusions to the US government.

Washington, however, despite receiving an Israeli delegation last year, never accepted the claims, nor did the European Union, of which 9 member states released a joint statement rejecting "Israel’s" claims, specifically citing a lack of any “substantial information” to link the groups with the PFLP.

“Despite offers to do so, Israeli authorities have not presented to the United Nations any credible evidence to justify these declarations,” the UN said on the issue. The so-called “ironclad” claims, as they were called by The Times of "Israel", have since been compared to the false Israeli claim that a misfired rocket killed 5 Palestinian children in Jabalia refugee camp, which was later admitted to having been an Israeli airstrike by Israeli officials, in addition to many other similar, high-profiled claims that were never proven by "Israel".

The Israeli raid on August 18 targeted the following Palestinian civil society organizations: Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Al-Haq; Bisan Center for Research and Development; Defense for Children International – Palestine; Health Work Committees (HWC); Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC); and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees (UPWC).

On Thursday, a conference was called for by the 6 Palestinian NGOs, titled “Israeli raids on Palestinian civil society organizations," during which representatives from the organizations called for international pressure on "Israel" over the ongoing attacks against their civil society groups. Shawan Jabarin, of Al-Haq, said at the conference that “our documentation of Israeli crimes…is dealt with like an atomic bomb” by Israeli forces. “We challenge them to prove their allegations, we challenge them,” going on to say that "Israel" needs to be held to account, because “they haven’t faced, ever, any sort of accountability”, asserting that “we will not give up, we will not stop," referring to his organization's human rights work.

Tahreer Jaber from the UPWC said in the conference that “a computer was stolen in the raid that has private information about women who use our services," stating that she fears that the private information may be used against the women by Israeli intelligence.

“We do not feel safe”, Tahreer said. “We do not have protection from anybody, not from the Palestinian Authority or the international community," she stressed, adding that "Israel" tries to “destroy the personal lives” of women involved in her field of work.

Ubai Aboudi, the executive director of Bisan Center for Research and Development, told me in an interview that his organization has no involvement with any activities outside its stated work when asked about "Israel’s" claims.

“The organizations have been working since before 1989,” he said, adding that in 1991, prior to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, Bisan center “was registered in Israel through the charities law actually."

“Our organizations have been working for many years, our activities are very clear," said Ubai, who stressed that the Bisan Center works “especially with the poor and marginalized communities, so we identify as a progressive organization and we are proud of that."

“Al-Haq was established as the first human rights organization in the Middle East”, he said, adding that “these organizations are influential, they helped establish NGO’s which are concerned with combating domestic violence against women…helping to combat neo-liberal economic policies, as well as settler colonial violence, even Palestinian Authority violations, were documented and talked about.”  

"Israel’s" crackdown on the human rights groups did not stop with its raids on their Ramallah offices. Khaled Quzmar of Defense of Children International-Palestine (DCI-P) was later briefly detained and the director of Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, was also threatened with arrest by the Israeli intelligence officers. The tactic of pressuring the leading figures in Palestinian human rights groups is not new either. Bisan Center’s Ubai Aboudi has been prohibited from leaving the West Bank twice, the last time when invited to attend a UN conference. Aboudi was arrested and held without a charge in an Israeli military prison for two months in 2020 and was later sentenced to 12 months in prison on trumped-up charges made up by the Israeli military court system that has a 99.76% conviction rate and is often referred to as a kangaroo court.

“This is a crime of persecution," the executive director of Bisan Center said about the shutdown of the human rights groups offices in Ramallah, which he says can be responded to by the international community in two substantive ways; “the first is to sanction Israel” and “the second is to put pressure on Israel to rescind its designations” of the rights groups as "terrorist organizations". “The Israeli government cracking down on human rights defenders is establishing once again that it is an Apartheid State.”

I asked Ubai Aboudi what he believes the underlying goals of "Israel" criminalizing, attacking, raiding, and harassing the 6 human rights groups are, and he responded by saying, “These organizations are the most active; they are the backbone of Palestinian civil society and Israel has a need to re-engineer the Palestinian civil society in order to maintain Israeli Apartheid and control over society. So if you want the reason, this is the reason, this is why Apartheid regimes crack down on human rights defenders and civil society.