In the years I’ve been covering Israel’s occupation of Palestine, it’s an issue that arises time and time again. Palestinians are criminalized and imprisoned, and their lives destroyed all because of a weapon that Israel can yield, without any question or consequence: secret evidence.
In a new submission to the International Criminal Court, jailed Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri called on the court to bring urgency to its investigation of war crimes committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.
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.
The ADL’s main targets these days include a liberal ice cream company, mainstream human rights organizations, and the Harvard University student newspaper.
Ubai Aboudi, the Executive Director of Bisan Center for Research & Development, was detained by Israeli forces while attempting to enter Jordan. Aboudi was on his way to attend the World Social Forum in Mexico.
We are expected to believe that six months later the U.S. government is still looking over information Israel gave them regarding the designation of six Palestinian rights groups as terrorist organizations.
Six months ago there was outrage when the Israeli government designated multiple Palestinian civil society organizations as “terrorist institutions,” including from progressive lawmakers in Washington. But today, despite repeated calls for action, the U.S. government has still not challenged the designations in any way.
It’s been more than five months since Israel designated six Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist groups, and the groups are demanding that action be taken to reverse the decision. In a joint statement the groups called on third party states, including the US, EU, and intergovernmental organizations to “take concrete action against the Israeli occupation authorities’ continued harassment and criminalization of Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society organizations by calling for full revocation of the designation.”
In case you missed it, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic lately issued a report that finds Israel’s treatment of Palestinians on the West Bank amounts to the crime of apartheid. The study came out on February 28 in the wake of five longer, wider-ranging, apartheid reports published since 2020 – and just before the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine published yet another apartheid report on March 21. Despite its quiet rollout, the study’s high quality and association with Harvard likely mean it will play a significant role in establishing Israel’s apartheid, and represents a victory for Palestinian human rights.
Scientists for Palestine and the Bisan Center for Research and Development are launching “The Bisan Lecture Series” which aims at the full integration of Palestine into the global learning community.