Silence by All Means - The Most Revent Wave of Repression against Palestinian Civil Society
Channel: medico international
Date: 2022-08-31

In October 2021, the Israeli government designated six Palestinian organisations to be terror groups. Since then, governments in member states of the European Union, Norway, the United States or Switzerland had suspended their support to organisations like Al Haq, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and others, while they took several months to study dossiers that the Israeli secret service had prepared and handed to them.

Eventually, not a single government or any of the intelligence agencies charged with the review and analysis of the Israeli files found any evidence for the support of terrorism by the outlawed organisations. In recent weeks and months of 2022, all of these governments publicly refuted the Israeli allegations. Those among them who had been funding said Palestinian entities, resumed their support. Only a few weeks later, on August 18, the Israeli army raided the offices of seven organisations (the six from before and another one that had been targeted before October 2021) and ordered them closed.

Panelists:

Aseel Al Bajeh, Advocacy Office and Legal researcher, Al Haq
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the OPT
Henriette Westhrin, Secretary General, Norwegian People’s Aid
Riad Othman, Near East Advisor, medico international Germany

Moderator: Inés Abdel Razek, Advocacy Director, Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy