The Dutch Government lately deferred to the Israeli government in deciding to defund the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, a leading Palestinian civil society group, because its failure to screen its staff and board on the grounds of their political opinion and affiliation is considered “undesirable” and displays a “lack of candour” by the organisation. That is the sole basis put forward by the Dutch government to terminate funding which started in 2007.

Addameer is one of six Palestinian NGOs designated by Israel as a terror organization. The prisoners rights group says the accusations against them are unfounded, and could have potentially devastating consequences for the Palestinian human rights movement.

Rep. Jim McGovern says he has seen “no evidence” to support Israel’s designation of 6 Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist,” but he muted his criticism of the measure, noting that pro-Israel forces came down on him last month for his “urgent” letter on the subject. McGovern also says that leftwing criticism of J Street trip to Israel, bringing Reps to meet Prime Minister Bennett, was “jarring” and polarizing.

Salah Hammouri is a Palestinian-French lawyer and human rights advocate from Jerusalem who works with the prisoner’s rights organziation Addameer, which was designated as a ‘terrorist organization’ by Israel. Here, Hammouri describes the arrests and imprisonments he has experiences since he was a teenager, and Israel’s motives in the attacks today against him and other human rights defenders. “The state harassment against Palestinian organizations, my fellow human rights defenders and myself is only the continuation of policies by a regime that seeks to quash our people’s will for freedom at all costs, as well as any resistance to the colonial apartheid regime put in place since 1948, which has pushed colonization relentlessly ever since.” Hammouri writes.

The Israel lobby group J Street initially joined an international chorus condemning Israel’s designation of Palestinian human rights orgs as “terrorist.” Then in November, the group took a delegation of six Members of Congress to Israel and Palestine and met with several Palestinian civil society and human rights groups– but none of the six designated groups– and on that trip, the delegation was briefed by Israeli government officials about the “secret evidence” in support of the terrorist designation, a source who was not on the trip tells me. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s disclosure statement from the trip supports that assertion: She says the delegation received “briefings on Israel security” from “senior” government officials.

The U.S. Prison, Labor and Academic Delegation to Palestine (2016) joins with organizations and individuals around the world to express its strongest solidarity with the six Palestinian human rights organizations that were falsely designated “terrorist institutions” by the Israeli government.

Liberal Zionist organizations could provide Joe Biden with the political capital inside the Jewish community and Democratic Party to confront Israel on its recent designation of six Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist organizations.” But so far they have have done little to take on the designation and even offered a platform to the Israeli government to defend the charge. It’s little wonder the Biden administration is keeping its mouth shut.

Over 100 celebrities have signed an open letter criticizing the Israeli government for designating six human rights groups as terrorist organizations. “The vital work of these six organizations to protect and empower Palestinians and hold Israel accountable for its gross human rights violations and apartheid regime of institutionalized racial discrimination is precisely the work that Israel is trying to end,” reads the letter.

More than 100 global foundations and donors, most of them U.S.-based, have signed on to an open letter expressing solidarity with Palestinian civil society after six leading human rights organizations were designated as so-called “terrorist organizations” by the Israeli military: “”As global funders of human rights and democracy, this attempt to ‘chill’ our funding and solidarity will not work. We stand with Palestinian civil society organizations and human rights defenders.”

Great news. Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, a 25 year House veteran and co chair of the Human Rights Commission, issued a stiff letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying it is “urgent” matter for him to get past his “initial leeriness” and “firmly and unambiguously denounce” Israel’s hateful decree that six leading Palestinian human rights groups are “terrorist” organizations.