Israel lobby moves to label NGOs exposing Zionist crimes as "terrorists"
Israel lobby moves to label NGOs exposing Zionist crimes as "terrorists"
An obscure Zionist legal entity tries to criminalise NGOs that threaten Israeli regime
Israeli Occupation Forces leave Gaza after 2009 “Cast Lead” ethnic cleansing campaign
“A legal think tank is urging the Justice Department to investigate groups it says act as "proxies" for a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.”
Zachor Legal Institute an Israeli-lobby-member regularly “takes the lead” in discrediting criticism of the brutal settler state of Israel as “anti-semitism” and campaigns assiduously against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). Zachor targets commercial, university and governmental sectors. Included in the Zachor portfolio is the “Zachor on Campus” initiative which effectively infiltrates University communities to crack down on any “deligitimisation” of the apartheid entity - framing it as “bullying, harassment or discrimination”.
In October 2020 an article in Electronic Intifada noted that:
New York University has agreed to settle with the US Department of Education over allegations that the university had not appropriately responded to claims of anti-Semitism.
[..]
Friedman noted that the Zachor Legal Institute, a major Israel lobby and lawfare organization, celebrated the news and explicitly acknowledged that it sees criticism of Israel and anti-Jewish bigotry as one and the same.
“What is key in the IHRA definition is its accuracy for modern anti-Semitism, which includes not only hatred towards Jews, but in specific cases, hatred and delegitimization towards Israel,” Zachor stated, claiming that the human rights groups hold Israel “to a completely different standard than any other country.”
This “double standard” trope is commonly used by Israel advocates to deflect criticism of Israel’s violations of human rights and shield Israel from any and all accountability. (emphasis added)
An image on the Zachor website compares BDS to the Klu Klux Klan. Of course there is no legal challenge to this misrepresentation. When an Australian academic presents the idea of the Zionist regime treatment of Palestinians for decades as being comparable to the Nazi treatment of Jews all hell breaks loose.
The higher education union is calling for Sydney University to reinstate controversial lecturer Tim Anderson after a court found he was unlawfully sacked over comments about Israel and other matters - including superimposing the Nazi swastika on the Israeli flag in a lecture slide.
In an affidavit, Anderson told the court, “While some may feel offended by Nazi-Zionist analogies, I say the inclusion of the analogy in that graphic was appropriate. The purpose of the slide was to encourage critical analysis ... No student raised any issue with the slide during the seminar.”
In March 2021 a California judge ruled against demands by ‘an anti-Palestinian litigant to be able to harass human rights activists’. It marked the first time that a US court “has acknowledged the McCarthyite environment faced by those speaking out for Palestinian rights,” according to civil rights group Palestine Legal, which represented eight defendants, along with the Asian Law Caucus and attorney Matthew Strugar. This was reported by EI.
For nearly three years, David Abrams had targeted and threatened the University of California at Los Angeles over a 2018 National Students for Justice in Palestine conference that was held on campus.
Abrams’ lawsuit demanded that UCLA release the names of the speakers at the private event, after the university denied in 2019 his request to disclose the names.
On 11 March, the court rejected those demands and ruled that disclosure of the speakers’ names was not in the public interest and “would violate their rights to freedom of association, anonymous speech, and privacy.”
The Zachor Legal Institute filed a complaint with the US Department of Education just hours after the conference had begun.
The complaint alleged that the university expressed an “intentional act of anti-Semitism” in hosting the conference. It added that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a “terror front” and claimed that the conference was an “attack on Jewish students.”
The US government accepted the complaint and opened an investigation. This is just one indication of the power of the Israel lobby in the US but it extends to the EU and UK.
Now Zachor want seven NGOs critical of Israeli regime’s ethnic cleansing campaign to be designated “terrorists”
In 2018 Zachor formed part of an Israel lobby campaign to demand the Trump administration consider investigating groups “linked to foreign terror groups, including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.” (according to Zachor)
In 2022, under the pretext of an alleged increase in attacks on Jewish people in the US and abroad - Zachor demand that the “DOJ should look into whether seven groups acting as arms for the PFLP are violating federal law, said Zachor in its Oct. 25 letter.”
The claims of an increase in attacks against Jews comes, of course, from deep within the Israel lobby - “In 2021, antisemitic incidents hit a record high, according to Anti-Defamation League data. There were 2,717 incidents, which was a 34% spike compared to 2020, including assault, harassment, and vandalism.” ADL data has been discredited as alarmist and misleading even by mainstream outlets.
The seven groups Zachor lists in its letter as "proxies" for the PFLP, a Marxist-Leninist group, are all designated by Israel as terrorist organizations and operate internationally.
The PFLP does not view the Palestinian struggle as a religious one, seeing it instead as a broader revolution against Western imperialism. The PFLP remained loyal to Syria throughout the regime change war waged against the Syrian government and people since 2011 while Israel supported, armed and equipped the various terrorist groups that invaded and occupied huge swathes of Syrian territory.
The seven groups include the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees, Addameer, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Al-Haq, Defense for Children International — Palestine, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. All these groups are instrumental in exposing the crimes against Palestinians committed daily by the Zionist regime forces and settler cults.
All seven have also aligned with Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions according to Zachor.
The letter sent by Zachor to the DOJ comes roughly one year after Shin Bet, Israel's FBI equivalent, issued a report on how the seven "proxies" financially coordinate with the PFLP and engage in money laundering and wire fraud. Many of the employees working for the "proxies" double dip for the PFLP or are PFLP activists, according to the report.
In August 2022, Israel's government raided the offices of several of the alleged terror-linked groups as part of its investigations into their activities.
“We have again asked the Department of Justice to investigate designated foreign terror organizations that are raising funds and other means of support through front groups in the United States and overseas," Marc Greendorfer, an attorney who founded Zachor, told the Washington Examiner. "For the security of the United States and the protection of those who choose to donate to humanitarian causes, it’s critical that the DOJ investigate the seven PFLP front organizations identified in our letter."
Zachor claims that the PFLP “proxies” are operating in the US “with impunity” - meaning that the challenge to the Zionist lobby control of US government, corporate and institutional policy is becoming too powerful and must be silenced.
"While some foreign governments and others have decried the designation of the Seven PFLP Proxies as terror organizations, and further objected to Israel’s raids, a review of the information presented herein demonstrates that notwithstanding the claims of being humanitarian civil society organizations, the Seven PFLP Proxies operate to advance the goals of, and are controlled by, the PFLP," said Zachor in its letter.
Addameer provides free legal aid to Palestinian prisoners and "works to end torture and other violations of prisoners' rights through monitoring, legal procedures and solidarity campaigns," according to its website. According to Zachor "functions as the legal advocacy arm of the PFLP”.
Of course Zachor will criminalise one of the most steadfast and secular of the Palestinian Resistance groups. This excerpt is from an article by historian and journalist Stephen Lendman:
Mossad specializes in targeted and larger scale attacks. Car bombs are a favorite tactic. Burgas was a classic false flag. State terror is official Israeli policy.
Mossad’s dirty hands were responsible for dozens of similar incidents. Israel and America perfected the art of killing. They’re experts at pointing fingers the wrong way.
Victims are wrongfully blamed. It’s longstanding rogue state policy. False claims about fighting terrorism persist. They’re Big Lies. They repeat ad nauseam.
Repetition manipulates public opinion. The mainstream media support what demands condemnation. They turn truth on its head. They do it repeatedly. They do it consistently. They violate core journalistic ethics.
Zachor’s claims that the seven NGOs should be prosecuted purely because of their connections to the PFLP is indicative of the frustration within Israel and its global PR network that the Resistance factions are growing in strength and unity rather than buckling under pressure from the occupation regime and its powerful media and legal advocacy complex.
Humanitarian award-winning Al Haq is one of the most powerful organisations exposing Israeli crimes against Palestinians on multiple fronts.
Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation based in Ramallah, West Bank. Established in 1979 to protect and promote human rights and the rule of law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the organisation has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Al-Haq documents violations of the individual and collective rights of Palestinians in the OPT, irrespective of the identity of the perpetrator, and seeks to end such breaches by way of advocacy before national and international mechanisms and by holding the violators accountable. The organisation conducts research; prepares reports, studies and interventions on breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law in the OPT; and undertakes advocacy before local, regional and international bodies. Al-Haq also cooperates with Palestinian civil society organisations and governmental institutions in order to ensure that international human rights standards are reflected in Palestinian law and policies. The organisation has a specialised international law library for the use of its staff and the local community.
Al-Haq is the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists - Geneva and is a member of the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), the Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PRHOC), and the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO).
According to Zachor the crimes of Al-Haq include their leadership having connection to the PFLP.
“Shawan Jabarin, Al-Haq's general director, was identified in 2008 by the Israeli Supreme Court as “among the senior activists of the Popular Front terrorist organization." In 1985, he was convicted in Israel for training and recruiting PFLP members.
Jabarin used to be a board member for Defense for Children International — Palestine, which Zachor says "has extensive interlocks with the PFLP's leadership and operational command."
Zachor is demanding that the DOJ holds the alleged proxy groups "accountable for their promotion and support of terrorism." The reality is that these “proxy groups” are affiliated to one of the historic Resistance organisations and they are holding Israel accountable for Zionist terrorism against Palestinians. This is what all these Israel lobbies object to.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
Black Lives Matter is also of concern to Zachor
This "institute" appears to have only two staff, Marc Greendorfer — a right-wing American lawyer who has argued against same-sex marriage — and Ron Machol, an Israeli "hi-tech professional". Looking at its sparse website and minimal social media presence, Zachor looks to me to be yet another front group for Israel's "Ministry of Strategic Affairs". Greendorfer's apparent ties to Adam Milstein also seem to suggest this. Milstein is a multi-millionaire financier of the pro-Israel lobby who is known to coordinate closely with this ministry which has, for the past five years, led Israel's semi-covert war on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid.
In July 2020 Zachor went after BLM as a “major strategic threat” to Israel according to an article in Middle East Monitor.
Without citing any evidence whatsoever, the "Zachor Legal Institute" claimed in a press release that "BLM is rapidly incorporating the international terror playbook for its US insurrection." To support this outlandish claim, the "institute" adduced the BLM movement's support for Palestinian human rights in the form of the BDS campaign.
While Zachor as a single entity is not influential, it is part of a vast web of groups and organisations whose common aim is to prevent prosecution of Israel for decades of crimes against Palestinians - ethnic cleansing, illegal land appropriation, water theft and contamination, food and energy deprivation, destruction of settlements and homes, theft of land and prevention of agricultural self-sufficiency, illegal detention of minors and sexual abuse of children, organ theft, torture, extra-judiciary executions, oppression, racism and apartheid, price-tag murders, intermittent bombing of the Gazan enclave, abject cruelty and psychological warfare particularly of children.
The power of the Israel lobby lies in its unity - but what it fears most is the unity of the Resistance and that is happening since Syria won the war against the might and disproportionate force of the Western-led neocolonialist cabal. Israel is facing an increasingly bleak and disempowered future and this is when any cornered beast is at its most dangerous.
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I am reminded of a very insightful observation by journalist/author Whittney Webb recently in interview with documentarian James Corbett, in which she highlights the attacks perpetrated against those who dissent or counter the U.S. government narratives - leading to a present climate and one perhaps only getting worse in the coming future, where out of fear of reprisal we must all think and believe the same; the same as “our dear leader” so to speak, same is The State. This I think was in my lifetime felt and witnessed after the 9/11 false flag operation, and I feel it is the same tactic used by Zachor pushing to deem those 7 pro-Palestinian human rights groups (for example) and the entire BDS movement as “terrorists”. As well, the pivot towards “domestic terrorism” within the FBI and Homeland Security Department coincided with a years long eroding of the 1st amendment through the Corporate State.
Thank you Vanessa for all the fine work you do! Our world is getting very scary when you can be labeled a criminal based solely on saying something that someone else doesn't agree with or like, independent of whether what you said was true or false. Or as you know better than most, you could find yourself on a hit list.