After the U.S. imposed sanctions, YouTube took down over 700 videos from prominent Palestinian human rights groups. Rights advocates say this censorship goes beyond Palestine and affects the future of international justice and accountability.

The Balfour Declaration violated Britain’s legal obligations as set out by the Covenant of the League of Nations. This establishes a legal basis for the Palestinian people to demand reparations from the UK.

Adrian Kreutz reflects on his visit to Palestine to join in Al-Haq’s International Law Summer Program.

House Foreign Affairs Committee votes to stop funding Palestinian curriculum that include teaching that Israel is an apartheid state. Rep. Brad Sherman of Los Angeles explains, Israelis and Palestinians live side by side in separation, just like the Dutch and the Germans live on either side of a border, so to characterize Israeli rule as apartheid is an “extreme and ridiculous conclusion.”

United Nation’s Special Rapporteur’s Francesca Albanese and Mary Lawlor condemn Israel’s attacks on Palestinian civil society organizations.

The recent assault on Gaza and raids on Palestinian NGOs reflect an emerging Israeli policy of preemption, or what might be tentatively called the “Gantz Doctrine.”

In a blatant attempt at intimidation, Israel is claiming that providing legal representation to Palestinian civil society organizations violates anti-terrorism laws.

The European Commission has restored funding to the Palestinian human rights groups Al-Haq despite an Israeli attack on it and five other Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations as having supposed terrorist links. “They can do anything they want. They can confiscate [our laptops and files]; they can close the office; they can arrest people; they can arrest me and criminalize me,” Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq says. “We will not give up. I assure you we will not give up, and we will not step back.”

Even a scholar who opposes the label says, “Israel does not have a case against apartheid.” That is the power of the apartheid framing. The label for Israel has gained broad acceptance because of the widening awareness of the death of the Two State Solution — that Israel never really wanted a legitimate, contiguous Palestinian state. Because of American support for Israeli impunity, it may take years for the apartheid name and frame to achieve the result we are hoping for. But at least we now have a tool for organizing and persuasion of great potential potency, if we bang the apartheid drum often and loudly. 

Surely a surprise to Israeli PM Bennett — the American Bar Association sent him a letter challenging the country’s designation of six Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations. “We request that you review the concerns some in the international community have expressed questioning whether the procedures utilized [in making this designation] inappropriately deprive persons or organizations of their rights,” the ABA president wrote. His letter also calls attention to Israel’s biased court system. The ABA has thus added another respected voice to the growing criticism of Israel’s apartheid laws, policies and practices and, by extension, to the silence of the U.S. State Department on this matter.