Israeli lawyer asks AG to probe labeling Palestinian NGOs as terrorist

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- A criminal investigation should be opened against Israeli Occupation War Minister Benny Gantz for his decision last month to label six Palestinian human rights NGOs as terrorist organizations, attorney Eitan Mack said in a letter he wrote on the matter to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit.

“We asked that you open a criminal investigation against Minister Gantz for falsely declaring that six Palestinian human rights groups are terror organizations” and that “you freeze the declaration” until the investigation is completed, wrote Mack, who represents the left-wing Israeli NGO Combatants for Peace.

In his letter to the attorney general, Mack referenced Section 281 of the Israeli penal code that allows for a four-year prison sentence to be imposed on someone who deliberately provides false information that leads to the deprivation of rights.

Gantz’s action, he pointed out, has affected the freedom of movement and expression of those working in the organisations in question, and has also affected their freedom of occupation and association.

Mack also suggested that Gantz had targeted these six NGOs simply because they have been critical of ‘Israel’ and provided information against the occupation state to the International Criminal Court. They have also worked with and for Palestinian prisoners held by ‘Israel’, he noted.

Israeli War Ministry on 19 October 2021 issued a military order declaring six Palestinian civil society organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to be “terrorist organizations.”

The Israeli War Minister office claimed that the six groups were “part of a network of organisations operating undercover in the international arena” on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian resistance group, which was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in 1997 by the US State Department.

The groups are Addameer, al-Haq, Defense for Children Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Bisan Center for Research and Development and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees.

The designation, made pursuant to a 2016 Israeli statute, effectively outlaws the activities of these civil society groups.

It authorizes Israeli occupation authorities to close their offices, seize their assets and arrest and jail their staff members, and it prohibits funding or even publicly expressing support for their activities.

On November 7, the Israeli forces announced that the War Ministry’s designation had been implemented after occupied West Bank Army Chief Yehuda Fox signed an order declaring the six groups “illegal” claiming they were “part” of the PFLP and “endanger the State of Israel”.

The US State Department said that it would seek clarification from Israel after it declared the six Palestinian groups as terrorist organisations, noting that Washington was not warned of the move.

“We’ll be engaging our Israelis partners for more information regarding the basis for these designations,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during a press briefing with reporters.

Later, a representative from Israel’s internal intelligence agency, Shin Bet, tasked with briefing the U.S. Congress headed to the United States to justify the six groups being outlawed.

Israeli Haaretz said the representative presented evidence on an unrelated organization.

According to the Israeli newspaper, the 74-page document had previously been presented to European diplomats in May in an attempt to convince them to stop funding the organizations.

Sources who were shown it at the time said it did not convince them.

According to sources, Haaretz said, additional evidence was presented to the U.S. State Department and other officials with higher security clearances.

The Shin Bet’s document quotes one of them linking PFLP to Addameer, Al-Haq, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Bisan Centre for Research and Development, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and Defence for Children International – Palestine.

“The institutions belonging to the Popular Front are related to one another and are the organisations’ lifeblood economically and organisationally. In other words, laundering money and funding the operations of the Popular Front,” Haaretz reported, citing the document.

Some Israeli analysts concluded the Shin Bet’s document does not offer concrete proof that the six human rights NGOs were used as a front for the PFLP.

Israel’s decision sparked a swift backlash around the globe, with the EU, US Jewish NGOs, progressive Democrats, and international human rights organizations expressing criticism.

The UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting on Monday to consider the matter, following which France, Estonia, Norway, Ireland and Albania called on ‘Israel’ to provide evidence for Gantz’s allegations.

At the end of October, independent UN human rights experts called the initial decision “a frontal attack on the Palestinian human rights movement, and on human rights everywhere.”

UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the OPT, Lynn Hastings, said “these allegations are taken very seriously.”

According to her, however, none of the UN agencies, nor AIDA, have received written documentation which could serve as a basis for these allegations.

“We will continue to engage with all relevant partners for more information”, Mrs. Hastings explained.