Over 100 Hollywood stars sign letter criticizing Israel’s outlawing six Palestinian NGOs

Over 100 celebrities have signed an open letter criticising Israel’s designation of six leading Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist organizations.”

The joint letter described Israel’s outlawing of the six Palestinian groups as “an unprecedented and blanket attack on Palestinian human rights defenders”.

It also said that “the designations target six of the most eminent Palestinian human rights defenders engaged in critical human rights work and cover all aspects of civil society in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

Among the signatories are Hollywood stars Richard Gere, Claire Foy, Tilda Swinton and Susan Sarandon; director Ken Loach, musician Jarvis Cocker, the band Massive Attack, and authors Philip Pullman, Colm Tobin and Irvine Welsh.

Asked to comment on the letter, the Israeli occupation government referred Sky News to a statement given by the war ministry at the time, which claimed the six NGOs used “forgery and deceit” to get funds from European countries.

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 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.