H/t LaFeminista who first reported this here in a short diary with the concise and accurate title: “The Methodical Silencing of Palestinians.” Here’s The Guardian’s description (this happened on Friday):
Israel labels Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organisations...Most of the groups document alleged human rights violations by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The six are Al-Haq, a human rights group founded in 1979, Addameer, Defence for Children International – Palestine, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.
Please, before you do anything else, visit all 6 websites, and if relevant (to your and their social media use) start following them. If nothing else, they deserve an amplified voice now.
I continue the Guardian story, it’s important for the context:
The Israeli defence ministry said they were linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular political movement with an armed wing that in the past carried out attacks against Israel.
The groups “were active under the cover [italics mine — AO] of civil society organisations, but”... were “controlled by senior leaders” of the PFLP and employed its members, including some who had “participated in terror activity”.
The groups serve as a “central source” of financing for the PFLP and had received “large sums of money from European countries and international organisations”, the defence ministry said.
The groups, well known for their human rights work, have received funding from EU member states, the United Nations and other donors.
The Short-Term Gaslighting
Now… what the Israeli Occupation wants the West (and its own “liberal” segments of the press and society) to do now, is to start delving and debating those accusations in minute detail. This is gaslighting for international and domestic consumption, done by seasoned professionals.
You might wonder why (unless you are well versed in Israel-Palestine history) you may have heard very little of the PFLP. That’s because in recent decades they’ve played a secondary role, at most, in Palestinian politics, and an even smaller role in any armed action against Israel, whether guerilla or terrorism. The notion that the PFLP represents a major threat is laughable. The theory that it somehow fools the entire international community, to massively rebuild its militant wing through, e.g., Defence for Children International Palestine — is beyond absurd.
AFAIK the PFLP is a traditional Left movement, in the Old Left sense (socialist/Marxist, allied with the old Soviet Bloc, etc.). Its heyday is long in the past. It is unsurprising that there be some ideological and social connections between these Leftists and people who work in secular civil society and human-rights organizations. The old, tried-and-false, McCarthyist guilt by association.
Every moment the world spends on parsing the “evidence” for such associations, is a moment NOT spent on the main criminal and terrorist actors in the West Bank and Gaza — namely, the Occupation regime that terrorizes every single person of the millions of people living there, and robs them of a proper life every single second.
As I said: professional gaslighting in action.
When it comes to Palestinians, Israel is NOT a Democracy
As of Sunday evening, the Israeli government is doubling down with a domestic media blitz. Even the liberal Haaretz claims that “solid evidence” was shown to decisionmakers by the SHABAK secret police. (curiously known in English via its 1950s name “Shin Bet”)
Is it needless to point out? No, never needless when it comes to Palestinian rights and dignity, so let me point this out: it’s highly likely that 100% of that “evidence” would be laughed out of any proper court of law, having been obtained by an undemocratic secret police and its network of coerced collaborators etc.
Unlike, say, McCarthyism in the 1950s US, Israel’s government enjoys the unbearable lightness of ruling militarily over Occupied Palestinians— yes, all Occupied Palestinians, including even the “President of the Palestinian Authority” himself. Under this rule, Occupied Palestinians have no inherent rights. There is no need to set up, e.g., House/Senate committees and bring evidence for critical scrutiny. The Security Minister just “saw the evidence”, signed the decree, and it’s done. As DCI-Palestine reminds us, even before this decree the Israeli military could choose any day of the week to stroll right into the heart of Ramallah, raid its main offices, rob computers and documents, and go back into Israel without firing a shot — while the “Palestinian Authority Security Forces” stand by uselessly.
Note: under the Occupation regime, the term “terrorism” is expanded much beyond what you think it means, to also include any nonviolent action against the regime. Recently there was a further tweak to martial law, allowing the definition of entire civil organizations as “terrorist” even if only some specific “terrorism” links were “found”.
Now that the decree has been signed, Israeli soldiers can stroll back into Ramallah, shut down the NGOs’ offices indefinitely, and arrest employees at will, dealing a devastating blow to Palestinian civil society. The Israeli government can also block all funding to these NGOs. What? You didn’t know that all finances of the supposedly independent “Palestinian Authority” are controlled by Israel?
The Big-Picture Gaslighting: an Ongoing 75-Year Racist Crime
A natural question: why this declaration? Or why now? There is no immediate visible threat to Israel’s Occupation regime. It is about as strong as it’s ever been. And Israel’s famously odd new governing coalition, a “rainbow coalition” of sorts loved by the Western press, spanning far-right to Arab Islamists, a coalition holding a 1-seat majority, doesn’t need any redundant rocking of the boat, precisely on the same week it’s trying to pass a budget. (BTW, the Security Minister who issued this decree is none other than Benny Gantz, the supposed moderate who was the Israeli centre-left’s best hope of unseating ex-PM Bibi in 2019-2020)
One might speculate the decree is pre-emptive lawfare, with the International Criminal Court starting to roll its creaky wheels towards investigating Occupation war crimes, as announced in March by chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Possible. But that process would take years, Israel doesn’t recognize the ICC, and conversely the ICC would look at what Israel’s regime does with multiple sources not limited to these 6 NGOs, and would certainly not take the accused’s opinion about prosecution witnesses at face value. If anything, this egregious decree is likely to backfire and to accelerate ICC proceedings.
Instead of political guesswork, I would like to lift our gaze and see the bigger picture. I was raised as a mainstream Israeli in the 1970s and 80s. Typical beliefs about Palestinians in the Jewish-Israeli society I grew up into, were that Palestinians are primitive, untrustworthy, and violent, that they have no “proper” culture or civil society per se, that they are only driven by irrational hate of Israeli Jews and will stop at nothing until they “throw us into the Sea”. According to that narrative, Palestinians will use anything — human rights, international proceedings, peace agreements — as a ruse and a trap to get them closer to their goal.
The mid-1980s to late 1990s saw some serious hesitation about that narrative and sincere internal struggle about trying a different tack. But the September 2000 collapse of the Oslo process, with Israel’s “security” establishment immediately providing the (FALSE!) narrative of a premeditated Palestinian trap — brought back the old racist tripe with a vengeance. Nowadays it is really hard to for us to talk with most fellow Israelis, even close friends and family, about Palestinians. We would be deeply hurt by what we hear (and they would be hurt likewise!), and we wouldn’t change even an iota of a mind. I know, because we do lapse into trying every once in a while, and it is just horrendous. (people might have a favorite individual Palestinian they know and like; that wouldn’t change their generic view of Palestinian society and values)
Needless to say? No, never needless. Here, I’m spelling it out in boldface title font:
This prevailing Jewish-Israeli narrative about Palestinians constitutes classic, textbook colonialist racism. Full stop.
Trying to argue over details and specific events is, again, giving in to gaslighting.
The problem, the tragedy, is, that ever since at least the 1950s, Israelis have succeeded to gaslight the West, and surely most of America, into seeing Palestinians (and to some extent, most Arabs) through Israel’s racist-colonialist eyes.
From that perspective, this latest premeditated assault on Occupied Palestinian civil society is a major blitz to try and regain lost ground on that criminal, murderous, generations-long racist gaslighting project.
Please help foil this assault in any way you can. Thank you.
Note: as a diarist I cannot flag comments. But in line with recent site policy changes, I ask the fair and anti-racist readers to recognize and immediately flag any anti-Arab microaggression that may take place in the thread. Let alone more explicit forms of bigotry. Thank you again.
UPDATE: 21 leading Israeli human-rights organziations issued an ad in solidarity with the Palestinian NGOs.
Translation: “The Security Minister’s decree [calling] prominent Palestinian civil society NGOs as terrorism organizations, including our colleagues in the Palestinian human-rights community, is a draconian step that outlaws essential human-rights activity.
Documentation, public defense, and legal assistance are the core of human-rights defense activity around the world. Incriminating these organizations is a cowardly act typical of dark and authoritarian regimes. Defending civil society and human-rights organizations is a must. We stand in solidarity with our Palestinian colleagues, and call upon Israeli government ministers and the International community to resist [Minister] Gantz’s decision to the extent of their power.”