 Michelle? Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining us for this afternoon's webinar, Defending the Right to Defend Palestinian Rights. I'm Dr Michelle Staggs-Kelsel, and I'm a co-director of the Centre for Human Rights Law at SOAS University of London, and together with my colleague, Professor Dean Amata from the Centre for Palestine Studies here at SOAS. We wanted to host this webinar and lead a discussion amongst some of the Palestinian NGOs who've been the recent target of Israeli determination to determine them as terrorist organisations. In addition to Professor Michael Link, who is of course the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, to get his opinion with respect to the situation in Palestine vis-à-vis this most recent counterterrorism or alleged counterterrorism effort by the Israeli government. Just to frame our discussion today, I wanted to mention a few things that we here at SOAS University of London are currently undertaking in support of efforts of Palestinian NGOs in this regard. Dean, perhaps you would like to begin by speaking to the statement made by 75 academics here at SOAS with respect to what the situation is at the moment. Thanks, Michelle. So I'm joining here as the Chair of the Centre for Palestine Studies, and obviously the name speaks for itself, but the statement in support of Palestinian human rights and human rights organisations was a statement that we initiated and was signed by about 77 academics from SOAS in support of Palestinian NGOs and human rights organisations working to protect Palestinian rights, and also in opposition to the Israeli action, which is actually a criminalisation of human rights advocacy and other lawful forms of opposition and civil activity in the occupied territories. So we issued the statement and we were very pleased with the response to it, but in the interest of time, I guess we will be, I'll hand back to Michelle, because you want to talk about the other very quickly, the other action that colleagues at the law department and other departments are taking to continue with the action. Thank you, Dina. Yes, with respect to the Centre for Human Rights Law and other members of the SOAS community, we are bringing an urgent appeal in support of the Palestinian organisations who have been designated as terrorist organisations under Israel's counterterrorism law by Israel's Minister of Defence on the 19th of October of this year, and the military ordered issues by the West Bank Commander of the Israeli Ministry, a military on the 3rd of November 2021. This appeal urges the special rapporteurs to request Israel to withdraw the designation of the organisations as terrorist organisations and the corresponding military orders in the West Bank, to affirm the commitment to uphold rights guaranteed in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and finally to refrain from any measures that constitute unjustified interference with the legitimate work of the organisations. For us, of course, the factual background to this memo probably does not need much introduction. I'm certain that many of those in the audience are already aware, but essentially the organisations in question, the six Palestinian organisations who have been the target of this particular situation have been essentially designated as such and seem to be engaged in terrorist activities when in effect they are, of course, as has been clearly documented, human rights organisations supporting the human rights of Palestinians at this time. In terms of the analysis that we engage in, we see that essentially the Israeli government's actions in this regard are in contravention of that government's support of the Declaration to Human Rights Defenders, which it has repeatedly supported, and in particular the freedoms of thought, expression, association and assembly. We are in effect very concerned with respect to the manner in which the legality, legitimate aim and purpose and proportionality of the response of the Israeli government in this regard has been justified. We see no clear grounds as a matter of international law for the claims being made by the Israeli government. But without further ado, I'd really like to turn over to the rapporteur, Michael Link, to explain to us how you see the situation as it currently stands and the manner in which the Israeli government has in effect targeted these organisations as terrorist organisations and the chilling effect this has on human rights defenders in Palestine at this time. Olson, thank you for this. It's an honour to be asked by the organisers of this SOAS event to be part of this distinguished panel. I know both Susan Power and Sahir Francis very well. I have deep admiration for them both personally and professionally. I can only wish that we were speaking under better circumstances, but then again, all three of us are deeply engaged in reporting on the many human rights violations arising from the 54-year-old Israeli occupation, and there hasn't been, and there won't likely to be any time in the future, an occasion when one or all of us are speaking on the issue of Palestine without having more bad news to deliver. So, Heron Susan will be speaking on the work of their respective organisations and the impact that this designation as terrorist organisations and unlawful organisations will almost certainly have on the ability of the six Palestinian organisations to continue their top drawer advocacy on behalf of human rights and humanitarian issues in the occupied Palestinian territory. In my short time today, I'm going to speak to three issues. First, the invaluable role played by these organisations. Second, the protection for human rights defenders provided by international law, and thirdly, the shrinking space for human rights organisations in Israel and Palestine. So first, these six organisations, Al Haqq, Ademir Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, the Basant Centre for Research and Development, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Defence for Children International Palestine, and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees are exemplars of the modern human rights, international human rights movement. In my role as UN Special Rapporteur on the OPT, I have dealt with most of these six organisations. Their advocacy on behalf of the voiceless has been indispensable. I have a high regard for their research and reports, and I regularly rely on them. I am always impressed with their professionalism and their effectiveness in their dealings with the different UN bodies that do work on the OPT. They speak the universal language of human rights and they regularly pay a heavy price institutionally and professionally for doing so. I deal with a wide range of actors, political, diplomatic, media, civil society, among others, and I know that among these actors, these organisations are well respected for their work. Several of them have received international awards for their human rights work. They offer vital contributions to the international promotion and protection of human rights through their published reports and international campaigns, and their advocacy shines a direct spotlight on the widespread and serious human rights violations associated with the Israeli occupation. My second point for you today goes to the robust protections offered by international law to human rights and humanitarian organisations from state interference and repression. I have three points to make here. My first point is that international human rights guarantees as part of the fundamental freedoms enjoyable by all of us, the freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, these are the cornerstone rights for any society and government which adheres claims to adhere to the rule of law and a rules-based international order. These rights offer a solid shield for civil society and non-governmental organisations, human rights bodies, trade unions, faith-based groups, political parties, and minority rights activists, among others, to function freely and to advocate critically, subject only to reasonable limitations consistent with the rule of law. My second point dealing with international law is that the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1999. While not legally binding, the Declaration's unanimous support by the General Assembly indicates its political importance for the modern world. In adopting the legal framework for the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, and association, the Declaration set out a number of commitments specific to the work of human rights defenders. These include the right to conduct human rights work at the national and international level freely, the right to effective protection under national law for opposition to human rights violations, and the right to solicit and receive resources to conduct human rights work, including the receipt of funding from abroad. And my third point on international law is to emphasise that governments must never misuse counterterrorism and national security legislation to hinder or criminalise the work of human rights organisations or to unjustifiably curtail civil liberties. The United Nations Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Human Rights Council have all been very clear that counterterrorism measures must be applied in a manner consistent with international law and cannot be employed beyond their specific and restricted purposes. In the modern world, it has been a temptation of authoritarian governments and of democratic governments with illiberal tendencies to rely upon counterterrorism laws to discredit and smother criticisms of their troublesome human rights records raised by civil society organisations. And the third point that I want to draw to your attention is that in my view, as special rapporteur, the government of Israel has been significantly deficient in honouring its obligations under international law, including under the Declaration of Human Rights Defenders. From the many reports issued by the United Nations and by civil society, Israel's treatment of human rights defenders, be they Palestinian, Israeli or international, who work on the vital issues arising from the occupation, has been contrary to the basic guarantees of international human rights law, nor is the situation improving. As Israel's military occupation becomes further entrenched, and as human rights defenders persist with their intrepid activism to investigate and oppose the regime of human rights violations that is integral to this occupation, all of the indications are is that these defenders will continue to be the prime targets of those in the Israeli government who are intolerant of their criticism, yet alarmed by their effectiveness. I fully align myself with the comments made by Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with respect to this terrorist designation. She said last October that, and I'm quoting, claiming rights before a UN or other international body is not an act of terrorism. Advocating for the rights of women in occupied Palestinian territory is not terrorism, and providing legal aid to detained Palestinians is not terrorism. In a statement released in late October, shortly after the Israeli government's designation was issued, I joined a number of UN human rights experts in calling upon the international community to reverse this decision. The international community must also continue to support the designated and other Palestinian civil society organizations, including financially, as they continue to document and to promote accountability for human rights violations in the OPT. Let me conclude with this. The 54-year-old occupation of the Palestinian territories, which becomes more pervasive by the day, with no end even remotely in sight, has been profoundly corrosive of human rights and democratic values. How could it be otherwise? To perpetuate an alien rule over five million people against their fervent wishes inevitably requires repression of rights, the erosion of the rule of law, the abrogation of international commitments, the hollowing out of well-accepted standards of military behavior, the subjugation of the humanity of the other, the denial of trends that are plainly evident, the embrace of illiberal politics and our present concern, the scourning of those civil society organizations that raise uncomfortable truths about the disfigured state of human rights under occupation. It is vital that the international community loudly and insistently defend the defenders. Thank you very much. Thank you. There are a couple of questions. Thank you so much. That was brilliant. Can I just pose a couple of questions coming in the chat and then perhaps we can have a discussion amongst us before you leave? I've got a question of my own if I manage to have time. So the first question is whether you'll have any update on the ICC regarding war crimes. I'm not sure whether that's something you could respond to. And the second question is what notice has the Israeli government ever taken of the United Nations resolutions? Sure. Let me try to briefly answer those. On the ICC, I don't have any particular updates to make. I mean, we know that in March, the office of the prosecutor accepted to go ahead on the second stage of its work with respect to the many complaints that have come in respecting both Israel and Hamas and the allegations against them. And I suspect we'll only receive periodic updates probably through the annual reports of the office of the prosecutor with respect to this. And unfortunately, we shouldn't expect any quick decisions. I can only imagine that this is going to be a long drawn out process, particularly with respect to the investigations of the allegations of war crimes in the various commissions of violence in Gaza. The one area which is, in my view, relatively low hanging fruit has to do with the designation or the allegation that the Israeli settlements, the 300 settlements, housing in close to 700,000 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, are war crimes under the Rome Statute. That I think should be more straightforward for the office of the prosecutor to come to a decision on. But I suspect they won't come to a final decision on all the issues, including that one, until they've completed their investigations and they made a determination if the facts are strong enough to go forward to the third and final stage, which is going to a trial. With respect to your second question about the notice that Israel may take of UN resolutions, Israel on one hand feels free to ignore these. We have hundreds of resolutions by the General Assembly and by the Human Rights Council that are passed annually that Israel is in violation of. It's also in violation of some 30 plus resolutions from the UN Security Council. And if I can just speak to that to a second, resolutions being passed by the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly are non-binding. But if they may well reflect international law, but when we come to the Security Council, the Security Council's past resolutions that say that the Fort Geneva Convention applies in full to the occupied Palestinian territory. The Israeli settlements are flagrant violations under international law. And that there are rain and that annexation, particularly of East Jerusalem and of the Syrian Golan Heights are profoundly illegal under international law. Israel has obeyed none of those. And there is Article 25 of the UN Charter of the United Nations says that member states must obey decisions made by the Security Council. And when the UN Security Council pronounces on international law, it's making a decision. And yet there's been no accountability. I suspect Sahir and Susan may agree with me. I think the single most important legal issue with respect to this 54-year-old occupation and all of the other issues arising out of the subjugation of Palestinians has to be the lack, the impunity and the lack of accountability. Criticism without consequences in the modern world means nothing. We don't, we have no other conflict or occupation in the modern world. We're on the one hand, we have such an array of settled law that the occupier is in violation of, where there is such a huge daylight between the promise of international law and the actual performance of the international community to impose that law. So that's where we stand with respect to this. I'm actually speaking on Monday with two of my predecessors, John Dugard and Richard Folk on a panel organized by law for Palestine with respect to the role of the United Nations. So if anybody wants to have a more detailed, listen to and ask questions on a more detailed discussion of the United Nations and international law with respect to the occupation, I invite you to join that on Monday. Thank you. Michelle, do you want to come in? Yeah, just on that though, with respect to how you see accountability efforts moving, going forward, what is your view of the most appropriate or the best forum in which to bring those efforts in light of the fact that there seems to be stasis, as you've already mentioned, with respect to Security Council resolutions, the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly? You know, it's very sparse when you look at the international scene and try to figure out where there are accountability paths that would end this impunity. Well, obviously one is what you what we've just mentioned is the ICC, but as the nature of that investigation seems very discreet and distinct in what it's targeting. It is, but you know, I can only I can only assume that part of the reason why Israel has gone ahead and designated these six Palestinian organizations and in particular Al-Hak is because of the ICC investigation. Al-Hak has been among the leading organizations in raising complaints and providing documentation to the Hague with respect to this. Israel doesn't comment about this very much, but I can I do expect that there is trepidation in the official corridors of power in Israel among the military leaders, among the administrative leaders, among the political leaders with respect to the consequences of an outcome at the International Criminal Court with regards to this. Another outlet obviously is through civil society is with respect to the responsibility of businesses who may have links to the Palestinian sorry to the settlement economy and the the role of the UN database in wanting to to be able to display those corporations which have direct links to the settlement economy if the the settlements are indeed war crimes or even if they're just flagrant violations under international law as the Security Council has said that should be enough to stop companies from any involvement in in those. A third avenue might be and I'm is the International Court of Justice. We already have one advisory opinion from 2004 which was valuable in its own right, but I think now is inadequate to meet the new challenges of 2021 and beyond. I'd like to see a new advisory opinion going to the International Court of Justice to ask the question is the occupation now illegal under international humanitarian law. I think it is I issued a report four years ago to that effect and I now see that there is actual concrete steps being taken to put the question to the General Assembly will it ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion on this. The thing is the international community says yes we agree there are many violations that are associated with the occupation, but the occupation itself is is legal if I say the occupation itself is illegal and therefore has to come to a complete end and I think seeking an advisory opinion from the ICJ would be a big step towards that in the grounds of accountability. Thank you very much. There is a question asking about details of the Monday debate, if it's possible to get that so maybe what we could do is perhaps we can put it in the chat if you have that Professor Link. Okay, I can give that later on once I'm free my other obligations to be able to do that but if you looked on the website of law for Palestine there will be a direct link to the program for Monday. I believe it's going to be an all day presentation of four different panels beginning at probably 9 or 10 a.m. Jerusalem time but there are a number of excellent speakers there. I commend the entire program to the people who are listening today. I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave with respect to this with great sorrow. I would have liked to have been here for the entire session but I'm very thankful to you for extending the invitation to me for this. I wish success for the rest of this and I know that you'll receive brilliant presentations from both Sahar and Susan today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, take care. Bye-bye. So shall we go on to the next speaker and then we can come back to some of the questions that have remained unanswered. Is that okay, Misha? Yes, absolutely. Did you want to introduce the next speaker? Yeah, I'll just introduce Sahar Francis who's going to be the next speaker. She has been the general director of Ramallah-based Adamir Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organisation Association, a Palestinian NGO providing legal and advocacy support to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli and Palestinian prisons since 2000. Yeah, she has joined, she has been general director since 2006 if I'm not mistaken. She's an attorney by training and she joined the association in 1998 first as a human rights lawyer then as head of the legal unit. She has also served on the Board of Defense for Children International for four years and currently sits in the Board of the Union of Cultural Work Committees. So without further ado, Sahar, would you care to begin your talk? Yes, good evening and thank you very much for organising this conference. Sorry, I think this is my phone at home. So actually in order to continue what Professor Michael Lenk was mentioning, it should be highlighted that this attack is not just by this designation based on the anti-terror law or the military orders. The Israeli attack against the Palestinian civil society has a history of long years of harassment, intimidation and different methods of how they are trying to affect our work and like because they're not happy with what we are doing on the ground. So if we want to take historically the attack against organisations in East Jerusalem, for example after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, there was a systematic attack and they closed and shut down more than 50 Palestinian organisations in East Jerusalem, including the Orient House because they didn't want the PA to have any power or any presence in East Jerusalem. Then they continued with shutting down charitable organisations, cultural organisations, student organisations based on the allegations that they are connected to Hamas or Islamic jihad or other political parties and of course the attack against the human rights organisations started like more than a decade ago by the NGO Monitor, UK Lawyers for Israel, UNWO, Shrigavim, Imturtzu, all these Israeli right-wing organisations that they started to distribute false information and claim that we are associated with terrorist groups. All these efforts actually to silence us all these years failed and this is why we saw this development in taking this Israeli law and using the Israeli law in order to declare that we are terrorists and it should be also highlighted that they in order to silence us, in order to shut us down as Palestinian NGOs registered under the Palestinian Authority active in the occupied territories, they didn't need to use the anti-terror law founded inside Israel and this is also a violation for the international law because basically Israeli law shouldn't be implemented in the occupied territories but I think it was used in this way in order to send a very clear message for the international supporters, for the international funders, for the organisations that they have joined projects with our organisations on the ground for the states that support these civil society organisations because the Israeli civil law could be implemented extraterritorially and internally against international organisations that they are registered and based in Israel basically. So what it means on the practical level for us these two systems that were used the military system and the civil system against us. Basically the military order comes in order to complement the Israeli anti-terror law and enabling the authorities, the occupation of course, authorities to raid the offices to confiscate our property to arrest us like including board members and general assembly members not just the employees freeze the bank accounts and all these actions they could totally paralyse our work basically and so far they didn't implement any of these actions but let's remember that in May this year they raided the office of the health work committees another the seventh organisation actually with the agriculture work committees both of them they were designated actually in January 2020 a year and couple of months before physically they raided the offices and shut down the offices and hang the military order asking them to be closed for six months of course the designation is permanent but the closure of the office physically is about to be finished in December we assume that they will extend this decision against both organisations in the same time they included the agriculture work committees in the declaration according to the anti-terror law of 2016 of course legally all of the six organisations and I think it will include as well the health work committees although the health work committees appealed against the military order designation and it was rejected so the next step is to petition the Israeli High Court we didn't submit the appeal yet against the military decision we are not going to exhaust any legal procedure according to the anti-terror law and here I would highlight the legal analysis that was published yesterday by Adela the legal centre inside Israel that they are representing and supporting most of us and they explained very well why actually legally it's not going to be considered as a due process if we try and there's no chance actually to win this case neither in front of the High Court or in the military procedures because basically all the allegations would be based on secret information and if we request to get these allegations we will not get the secret information and this is would be affecting seriously our chances to defend ourselves and to argue against these allegations brought in the military decision or in the anti-terror law and so far we are continuing with the efforts of the campaign that we started in the local level and also in the international level mainly we are trying to put pressure on the European parliament in the European institutions like the council the commission and of course in the United States as well because we believe just a political pressure could make the Israelis cancel these decisions and stop attacking the civil society organizations. I will not enter into much details about the work of the ICC because I assume my colleague Susan will represent the case of the International Criminal Court and all the work with the Criminal Court but it's very important to highlight that all the six organizations basically our work is covering most of the serious violations that taking place on the daily level on the occupied territories starting from the land issues and agriculture issues supporting farmers especially in area C and we all know that the current political discourse is very important when it comes for area C and the annexation plan that Israel is trying to implement and this is why organizations that they invest and work in area C would be targeted whether on the level of the support to women or children or prisoners the most vulnerable groups in the Palestinian society and of course our work as a domineer and defense the children that focus on child prisoners rights versus the UN different procedures and the ICC because also we submitted different cases to the International Criminal Court when it comes for the transfer of the prisoners to into prisons inside Israel and torture arbitrary detention and other violations the fair trial not offering a fair trial in the military courts this is would be considered as well a war crime and crime against humanity so we are aware that these are the cases and the legal work and the advocacy and the efforts that brought the occupation to escalate its attack against us and their efforts to silence us and to affect our daily work and all these allegations that we are involved in many laundry or in association with any terrorist attack this is not true it's there's no factual base for this information and it should be highlighted as well that the whole legal case that is taking place currently against some of the employees from the health work committees it's not ended yet there's no core decision in relation to specially the most important information that the Israelis claimed that they have and they drafted it in the dossier that was presented in May to the European side and the Europeans said it's not enough it's not sufficient and we're not going to take decisions based on this dossier and this dossier was published lately in the Israeli media and actually it's two confessions or let's say statements of two the kidneys that they are still imprisoned and awaiting trial and the military court didn't even started to hear the arguments against these two testimonies and then they decided to use them as a base for this designation and the military court confirmed last week that the Blee bargain that the Spanish citizen Juana Rishmawi that made in the military court it's not sufficient evidence in order to be used against the six organizations all these developments all these facts actually supports our argument that locally on the legal level there's no chance to win this case if we are going to submit any case any legal case in front of the Israeli system I will stop here and of course would be happy to answer any of the questions in the discussion apologies I had to unmute myself shall we go to Susan and then have questions for both of you and comments Michelle is that okay okay so our third speaker is Dr Susan Power who's a legal researcher for Al Haq organization which is a Palestinian human rights organization based in Ramallah quite well known internationally and locally and regionally and she also lectures on law at Griffith College so welcome Susan thank you for taking part in this and looking forward to your talk and thanks Sahar again thank you and thank you to the organizers and thank you to so us for the invitation to speak on this important subject of defending the right to defend Palestinian rights and of course this topic is particularly relevant in light of our recent the designation of Al Haq the organization that I work for along with the five other civil society organizations and as terror organizations and this basically like outlaws our human rights work both in Israel under the counter terrorism law of 2016 and dungeon military order as well in the occupied Palestinian territory right so just to give some context about the work of Al Haq Al Haq was established in 1979 to monitor and document violations of human rights and humanitarian law in Palestine regardless of the perpetrator so in our work we document and record violations of law against the Palestinian people both by the Israeli occupying authorities and the Palestinian authority and as Michael link already alluded to earlier we have been the recipients of a number of international human rights awards so we've had been converted 11 sorry international awards to date including the 2010 guzzin penning prize for human rights defenders the 2018 human rights prize of the French Republic and the 2019 human rights and business award which was awarded at the UN in Geneva and in 2020 the Gwynne Skinner human rights award for corporate accountability and so altogether our work and the work of Al Haq includes engaging with UN mechanisms we submit we submit UN special procedures we engage with the Human Rights Council we do advocacy to third states we engage in legal research and also accountability work and as Sahar has just mentioned there our work has also recently included a number of really key communications to the International Criminal Court so so far we have submitted six joint communications to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and we've provided evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by individuals in the Israeli army and the Israeli authorities against Palestinian victims in the occupied Palestinian territory and today's we've had quite a measure of success before the International Criminal Court so following the close of the preliminary examination Al Haq submitted an amicus curiae to the pretrial chamber on the question of territorial jurisdiction of the court and over crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory that is the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip and then this year the pretrial chamber found that the court did have territorial jurisdiction and then the prosecutor then formally opened the investigation so right now we're at the investigation stage and we're currently engaging with the investigation team so as well what's important to note is that Israel systematically denies international access to the occupied Palestinian territory so it denies access to UN special rapporteurs it denies access to investigators from the commissions of inquiry in fact finding commissions and we also expect that they will probably deny access to the investigation team of the International Criminal Court as well so what this means is that these teams the investigation team and the fact finding commissions they rely on Al Haq and other Palestinian human rights organizations to coordination provide the international community with the requisite documentation of Israeli crimes so these crimes include the indiscriminate killing of civilians torture practices property appropriation high stimulations and forcible population transfers and mass arrests and detentions and other acts of persecution and apartheid so it is because of our human rights work that Israel has targeted our staff and organization with the smear campaign and delegitimization so this has included debt threats against our general director Shuangja Breen and our legal researcher Nadiqa Swanson specifically for our work on the International Criminal Court. Prosecutor Ben Souda in her 2016 report on preliminary examinations noted that staff members of certain organizations that have gathered information of relevance to the office of the prosecutor for the preliminary examination such as Al Haq and staff and Al Mazan as well had been subjected to threats and other apparent acts of intimidation and interference and she said the situation had been taken very seriously including at the level of the Dutch authorities as the host state to the court so since then Israel has tried to cut off the funding of our organizations and it even established a ministry whose sole purpose is to smear Palestinian human rights organizations working with the court so it insinuates links to terrorism and then presents these reports to European funders to try and cut off our funding so the most egregious of these was published by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs in 2018 and 2019 and these included the money trail reports and terrorists in suits so these reports contain a number of defamatory attacks against the human rights organizations and they call on the EU and EU member states to hold their direct and indirect financial support and funding both to Palestinian and international human rights organizations so the reports characterize what actually is legitimate human rights work as the evolution of tactics employed by terrorist organizations to attack the state of Israel so these so-called terrorist tactics have been outlined by Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs who really rather bizarrely links the work of human rights NGOs and with these terror tactics so he says that NGOs that in their eyes the path to mainstream acceptance requires adopting legitimate methods of action and as a result terrorist organizations have embraced a new approach at the basis of which is a waging of a campaign of against Israel in the public opinion and legal arenas and while he says they are cynically and deliberately exploiting human rights NGOs perceived in the West as legitimate and he then continues to explain that to our understanding terrorist organizations hope in this way that they will co-opt civil society to push their respective governments to place pressure on Israel with the aim of curtailing its defensive and economic freedom of action so he is basically equating legitimate human rights work respected by western states as terrorist tactics the report also specifically targets our work on the international criminal court for example the ministry of strategic affairs report describes al-hak as leading the legal effort to delegitimize Israel at the international criminal court in the Hague and in a rather myopic profile of al-hak it names only two staff members again and the general director shawan jabarine and the head of our europe office at the time nadiq swanson and as the senior officials at al-hak and both who had previously engaged with the court and both who had been subjected to death threats the strategic affairs report money trail and similarly similarly concern has concerns with the funding of NGOs linked to what are called terror organizations so this report outlines what it sees as the problematic work of al-hak and it notes that al-hak is a remala based Palestinian organization it's a member of the Palestinian human rights organizations council and it says the organizations promotes boycotts against the state of israel and again has taken action against the state of israel in the international criminal court and the united nations human rights council so again these sweeping terror links and claims these are made merely very basic human rights work and even then al-hak is not even part of the boycott movement we do recommend that corporations conduct due diligence assessments regarding their settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory and responsibly disengage from the illegal settlement enterprise for al-hak we understand that the campaign of smears is really part of israel's systematic policy of silencing opposition and so that it can maintain its apartheid system over the Palestinian people as a whole with complete impunity one of the elements of the crime of apartheid under article two f of the apartheid convention is the persecution of organizations and persons by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms because they oppose apartheid and for us these terror designations these all constitute criminal acts of apartheid i think also really relevant development that had taken place a few days before the terror designations on 19th of october and three days earlier on the 16th of october al-hak had actually contacted frontline defenders on the suspicion of a spyware infection on one of the iphone devices of our staff members and frontline defenders conducted a technical investigation and they found that the phone had actually been been infected since july 2020 so our staff had actually been under surveillance by pegasus spyware and we then opened up the investigation and investigated 75 iphone devices right across the six organizations and who were later designated as terror organizations and i found that there was six phones had been targeted with the surveillance technology it also transpired a few days later that the that persons working in the in the palestinian ministry of foreign affairs who were working on the case file of the international criminal court that their phones were also infected with pegasus spyware so there's considerable costs involved it's not cheap to infect the phones with pegasus spyware this would have amounted to around 500 000 us dollars so while pegasus belongs to the notorious israeli company nso group we really can't say for certain that these attacks are launched by israel but we can certainly draw the dots on this and make our inferences so for us it about human rights work which has led israel on the 19th of october to designate our organization along with the five others as terrorist organizations under the counter terrorism law of 2016 and the the designation itself designation orga 373 states directly that the promotion of steps against israel in the international arena constitutes part of the terror organization struggle against israel and in this way it targets our legitimate advocacy work on the 3rd of november then the israeli military commander in the west bank issued a military orga giving effect to the designation in the occupied territory the one month after the designations just a few days ago on the 23rd of november israel backpedaled on the original designations and it inserted a clarifying pr amendment basically saying that the al-hak institution has been declared a terror organization because it constitutes an inseparable arm of the popular front terror organization and not because of it said civil activities it kind of it it just slipped this into the designation order and we believe that this is a pr stunt in relation to our ongoing advocacy so the net effect of the designations is some quite serious risks um related to it um our staff can be arrested and put on trial in the military courts um for membership of an unlawful organization our funds salaries and property can be seized and again this is all because of our legitimate international human rights work it's also worth noting and as sahar has also already pointed out um that these designations are premised on a shambolic and discredited 74 page document of evidence um some of which was obtained um from palestinians who work in a completely unrelated organization and who were subject to very grave interrogation practices which are prohibited under international law as torture in may israel shared the document with EU member state partners and then attempt to hold the funding of our organizations and the 74 page document was met with complete skepticism by the EU member states who derided the allegations as not being substantiated when the member states decided to continue their funding of al-hak and the partner organizations israel then responded by designating our organizations as terror organizations under the domestic law and the military order so even one month after the designations just a few days ago the EU representative for foreign affairs joseph borrell said the EU had still not received any convincing evidence so why is israel escalating the attacks on our organizations now so we've been operating in the west bank since 1979 well after 54 years of military occupation there are now over 700 000 illegally transferred in settlers living in 300 illegal settlements in the west bank these are crimes within the jurisdiction of the international criminal court whose investigation is progressing and which will see the prosecution of senior israeli military commanders and politicians following the opening of the investigation israel's foreign minister gabi eshkenazi tweeted that the decision by the icc chief prosecutor to open an investigation is a political decision that turns the court into a tool in the hands of extremists who back terrorist organizations and anti-semitic bodies the designations of our organizations is patently clear israel is trying to avoid individual criminal accountability at the international criminal court this is why israel is targeting our organizations to silence our voices and ensure its crimes are continued with impunity following the designations we've really appreciated the strong international support and we do believe that more can be done we want to thank so-at's for the statement of support which was signed by the 75 academics and also for drafting the joint urgent appeal and these actions are really important and we would ask that actions are continued so we'll be launching a website next wednesday for stand with the six which will have various samples of letters that people can send to their parliamentarians and we would ask that people continue to support and that civil society continues to stand with the six and things that we would ask in particular is for the united kingdom for example to use its leverage with israel to pressure israel's minister of defense to urgently rescind the designations and for the united kingdom to issue a statement condemning and not recognizing the terror designations for the united kingdom to publish a bulletin to banks and financial institutions putting them on notice to dismiss as inexplicable israel's terror designations and for the uk to remove terrorism clauses as internal conditions placed on donor funding of civil society organizations in the occupied palestinian territory and also for the uk to discontinue the uk israel trade and partnership agreement and to introduce legislation to prohibit the sale of settlement goods and services we'd also ask for the uk to increase financial contributions to the international criminal court and to respect the independence of the prosecutor and for the uk finally as a permanent member of the un security council to take concrete and immediate measures to end israel's prolonged occupation of the palestinian territory to bring the apartheid regime over the palestinian people and since 1948 to an end and to ensure effective remedy and redress for all palestinians including the right of self-determination and the right of palestinian refugees and exiles in the diaspora to return to their homes in palestine thank you susan that was amazing thank you so much and i really you know kind of as someone who works on kind of discourse language narrative the idea and and the fact that the ministry of strategic affairs has been very active you know it was set up to try and and talk about issues and influence international opinion and international policy in different ways and they use the language of terror in particular context so it is quite interesting to hear what you've said michael do you want to come in because we have a couple of questions want to sahad and then maybe we can have more questions come in as we as we begin the talk amongst ourselves sure thank you very much to both the speakers today for enlightening us and for giving us such a detailed and important background and also just to really lay out for us both the manner the way in which these allegations of terrorist organizations is just completely unfounded maybe if i begin with sahad as a palestinian yourself who has been engaged in human rights work for over for decades now what is the personal threat that you feel with regard to this and how does that affect you personally in terms of your own human rights work on the ground it could be very serious if they decide to implement the israeli law it means i could be arrested as the director of a damir prosecuted and sentenced for up to 25 years this is looks very serious because you know the israeli anti-terror law of 2016 was developed actually based on the security regulations of 1945 and other israeli laws that was related to terrorism and illegal organizations basically it's like as i said before the paper of adela's legal center is very well explaining the problematic in this law and if it would be implemented and the way how the crimes are described the actions actually how it's described in a very vague language so even if our legal work representing palestinian prisoners in the military courts and defending them in the israeli prisons could seems to be a very legal work doesn't mean that they cannot designate us as a terrorist organization as susan said in the designation order they claim that it's not because of our legal work because of the relation with the political party that they consider to be a terrorist party so actually it could be very serious on the ground as well as lawyers we cannot keep represent in the name of a damir of course because now being associated with these organizations working or as i said board member or any support that you offer for this organization or promote the work of this organization would be considered as a crime whether according to the anti-terror law or the military order so people could be arrested easily and prosecuted do you think it also further threatens the people that you're trying to assist through your work does their association with you in effect place them in a further a worse position as well sometimes yes of course because i think not being fully aware about the consequences of the use of both systems this is well spread fear within the prisoners community and their families especially whether we would be able to continue to defend them or not of course and you mentioned already that you have you have taken the view that there is no recourse to justice within israel itself and just to let out i'm sure our audience already knows but just to confirm that it's the minister of defense himself who would in effect be the one who would determine your appeal in in respect of one of those proceedings and he himself can therefore just decide at his own discretion whether or not to to lift this designation of terrorist organization is that correct yes but based on a consultation that he will get from a special committee that basically also the committee is in theory supposed to be an objective and independent committee but again the composition of this committee is problematic and the fact at the end of the day the use of the secret information is the most important issue in the whole process because from our experience as legal organizations dealing with cases whether it's about administrative detention house demolitions eviction for civil transfer of people destruction of houses demolition houses policies there's always use of the secret information and when it's presented for the israeli high court and fortunately in more than 99 of the cases i would say that the high court will confirm the request of the state based on the secret information and dismiss the cases so actually this is the very problematic issue in the whole procedure that when you base your decision on secret information how come we can guarantee a proper defense and how we can expect that we will win this case it's very clear from the beginning that we will lose the case and this is why it's very problematic and this is why most probably we wouldn't be engaged in any legal procedures internally thank you can I comment because there is a question in the chat by which you know perhaps we can we can inform our our attendees about the conditions that Palestinians live under in the occupied territories and the question is a question saying kind of asking whether it is true that Palestinians have to pass by checkpoints to to to get their medicine or something like that so perhaps perhaps you could you could perhaps we could you know in a way it is it is a settler colonialism and we have to think about it that way but perhaps Sahar you could because the question is posed to you in a sense about everyday life and about conditions lived conditions of Palestinians and then I have a question for Susan if no one else is coming in I think it's a really very complicated difficult situation if we want to describe the system of the checkpoints the bypass roads the tunnels the gates the wall and all this complication of how Palestinian could live and how the freedom of what it means the freedom of movement while living in the Palestinian occupied territories but in order to make it a short story imagine that there's around 500 different checkpoints and closure imposed on different like just imagine Calculia as he as a city where the wall is surrounding and there's gates and there's one entrance for the whole place and when they decide to close the gate people cannot go out and in unless if they guarantee the permission from the occupation authorities and tens of villages are closed in such a way where people in need of medical help or education or for your daily purposes you need to pass at least one checkpoint or one military gate and if you don't allowed you cannot continue and when you leave your house sometimes you don't know when you will be back to your house and lots of cases especially women who were forced to deliver in some certain years on the checkpoint slows their life out of these procedures and so on so it's the whole system of control and oppression against the Palestinian society of course on the daily level. Thank you Sahab. Susan I've got a question from Alan Watts in the in the chat what do you think of the British Labour Party in regard to attempts to shut down any discussion of Palestine? This is I mean this is something that we're seeing this is something that we're seeing right across the board like in many different countries and the silencing the silencing of political actors and with smears of anti-Semitism and it's a huge it's a huge problem this this abuse of anti-Semitism and weaponization of anti-Semitism and to close down legitimate discussion and political discourse so this is something that we're seeing this is something that we're seeing in many different countries like right across Europe right across Europe as well and I think it's something as well that we need to be need to be careful of. I know the United Kingdom has adopted the IHRA definition on anti-Semitism and this is particularly problematic because it equates anti-Semitism and equates this with criticism of what criticism of the state of Israel. Certainly this was in some of the certainly this is in some of the explanatory clauses to the definition so this is very problematic and it's so problematic that a group of Jewish intellectuals came together a few months ago and published a new declaration and called the Jerusalem Declaration where they where they have stated that they that they have objected and there's a very senior high-ranking intellectual senior professors in various in various institutions and a former UN Special Activism Professor Dugard as well but there's a few and they many people signed on to this and they have they've really questioned that IHRA definition as not being as not being a sound definition and as one which is particularly problematic when it comes to the the question of Palestine because we have very real we've very real issues here I mean I based in Ramallah now at the moment and like what we're seeing and what what Sarah Francis described just now like with the with the with the checkpoints and the denial of freedom of movement and the the fragmentation of the territory this is all part of a a framework and a fragmentation and a segregation which is which are acts of apartheid and acts of apartheid are acts where what where there is one group maintaining domination over another group and that one group is Israeli Jews maintaining domination over another group Palestinians and if we can't use the language of the apartheid convention and we can't use the language of the the Rome statute you know we can't use legal language to describe um legal violations which are ongoing in the territory without being branded as being anti-Semitic for saying that Israeli Jews are maintaining domination over the Palestinian people which is the framework of the apartheid convention we are entering into very very serious problems where actual crimes against humanity cannot be even called out and cannot be discussed because of an IHRA definition this is this is profoundly disturbing and this cuts to the this cuts to the core of freedom of expression and this cuts to the core of even accountability for international crimes and it creates a further violence for Palestinians because first of all Palestinians are suffering very grave violations amounting to crimes against humanity and then when they speak up and call out for the international community to intervene and to stop and to stop maintaining a system where Israel continues its its its violations they're silenced and targeted and suppressed as being anti-Semitic and then when when politicians in third countries also speak out they're targeted as being anti-Semitic so it's layers and layers and layers of violence and the amount of harm and damage that this is causing is really unquantifiable it's it's it's very disturbed thank you there are two questions to Sahar I think before I come back to you Susan and the first one is around whether in terms of are there any international groups allowed to examine or to or to work with prisoners like it was allowed in South Africa and the second one is given the use of law by the colonial state to legitimize the occupation are how important it is for your organization to continue to engage the law both domestically and internationally so on the first one actually in the Israeli prisons the access is allowed just for the international committee of the Red Cross as an international UN side that is allowed to enter to the prisons and to monitor the conditions but of course they are buoyed by the treaty with the Israelis in a way that they cannot publish their information and violations that they document and this is the main problem with the work of the ICRC it's mostly secret and they would be banned as well for example under interrogation when us as lawyers are banned meeting with the detainees and their interrogation it's not allowed as well for the representatives of the ICRC which is very like problematic because they are supposed to monitor the torture and to guarantee that there's no use of torture and their interrogation and still unfortunately they accepted this procedure by the Israeli intelligence services and they are silent on this level on the second question using the internal legal system is very problematic actually and as I said before for example the Salem decided at some point as an Israeli organization on all these attacks by settlers and violations that takes place in the occupied territories they're not any more engaging in the local investigation process because they concluded that there's no success in exhausting and trying to exhaust the internal legal system and we can confirm from our legal work on the level of torture and other ill treatment and violations that it's zero success for cases of torture that we try to argue in front of the internal legal system and this is why for us it's very important to exhaust and use the international system and this is why we're involved much and more and more cases are brought from our side to the UN different mechanisms to the ICRC and in other platforms but I think it should be highlighted as well that in the case of prisoners for example of Damir for a long time thinking about a step of boycotting the military court system but we cannot implement this without a whole strategic national plan for the liberation and the struggle and ending this occupation we cannot ask a 16 years old boy that is arrested under this system to boycott the the court without offering an alternative how he is supposed to defend himself thank you there is a question Michelle do you want to come in yeah thank you very much Sahar that's really an important intervention for us to understand the situation and the notion of the way in which law has essentially failed or cannot cannot be of any any use to you at least in Israel I wanted to turn back to Susan I mean you very much paint a picture there too of the mounting pressure anxiety and extremity of the situation that your your organizations and others in Palestine are feeling and certainly there is this sense that there's a law fair narrative now underway in which you're being targeted as terrorists in order to essentially you know outlaw anything that you're able to do or capable of doing in Palestine what is your view in respect of what the next or the best next steps are in terms of international approaches or accountability do you agree with professor link that an advisory opinion from the icj as to the legality of the occupation itself would be a good avenue to pursue do you think it's more imminent than that should there be stronger push toward icc investigations where do you think the the response should lie well first of all we are I mean we're in the process now with the international criminal court so like even even a few days before the designation like we had been we had been in communication with the with the investigation team from the court so this this this attack is very deeply weighed and very deeply related to that ongoing investigation I think we need to do everything in our power to ensure that the organizations are maintaining their viability that we're able to to continue our work and that we're protected and shielded from these attacks so like it's our most important thing right now like as an organization is just continuing that flow of information on that channel of information to the court to ensure that we have to ensure that we can continue sending our communications and to continue our work and that that is not that that is not impeded in any in any shape or form and so in order to protect our organizations we need we need a huge political a huge political pressure on the Israeli Minister of Defense to rescind the designation and I really think that this I mean this should be seen for what it is this is a political attack this is a political designation I think we really do ourselves damage by looking at this as some sort of by going through a legal process or potentially even engaging in a legal process this the the law itself is so the counterterrorism law of 2016 is so manifestly and profoundly disproportionate and disproportionate it is it gives such wide sweeping powers to the minister to defer to designate any organization as a as a terror organization and based on secret evidence and it can like it can never this can never be properly scrutinized or challenged in any in any legitimate court proceeding so it's it's really important that we see that we see the system for what it is it is an inherently unjust we would never get any type of justice and taking illegal action to even challenge this so we really need political action so we need to see we need to see support from third states you know and for civil society organizations to pressure third states to really continue to to to maintain pressure on the minister of defense to rescind the designations and even if they don't rescind the designations to not recognize the designation so to continue to to continue to to to communication to act with the with the civil society organizations and to see the terror designation as something as an act that is not recognized and it's not recognized and an act that's not recognized because it's it's it is essentially an act which amounts to an act of apartheid it's an act which which deliberately is intended to silence and not to silence dismantle civil society organizations and dismantle them because they're calling out crimes and the crimes in the occupied territory and crimes amounting to the crime of apartheid so there should be non-recognition of these acts by third states because these are these are these are acts which are internationally wrongful acts so it is important to continue that it is important to continue that pressure and to keep this up and I do think there's still room there legally for the counter-terror the counter-terrorism law itself to be examined like this law itself was the subject of 10 years 10 years of development and was overseen by four different committees who worked on it and it was clear in those committees in those committee stages that there was very sweeping powers which were even at that time warned against the the section like to be to designate organizations and to be able to designate entities for not actually committing any material acts of terrorism and for to have such an abuse of law in place like this law itself needs to be examined and and dismantled for what it is so there's still I think some research there to be done around this law also and maybe some maybe some more work with the with the special rapporteur on counter-terrorism but this law like the like the the patriot law and patriot act in the U.S. I mean this is a this is a profoundly problematic piece of legislation so yeah we like Sarah Francis we we don't see any hope of engaging legally before the before the courts because the courts themselves are the long arm of the occupation they're the they're the the courts of the colonizer and they're stacked up to act to rubber stamp Israel's illegal acts so we would have huge problems in this regard thank you Dina I don't know if you want to take some of the questions from the chat yeah there's just a couple of questions one of them really really interesting which is a question to the panel I'm going to read it out I'm an Italian Moroccan student I'm doing research on political prisoners in Jerusalem the control I experience every day to get through the checkpoint is endless I'm very stuck with the situation the control and a constant fear my question that maybe doesn't have an answer is how can we manage to research writing about the reality we see how can we pull the history of Palestine out of the institutionalized lies shared by the world a big question obviously but in a sense it also relates to other questions which we're saying how how can people abroad do anything to help I mean fray and friends former colleagues of these organizations and there's a specific question to al-haq whether there are any european north american or south african university law departments offered to cooperate with al-haq in terms of legal research and I know that so has done a lot of research on al-haq and we have a book by professor lynn welch welchman for those who haven't read it it's a fantastic history of al-haq really gripping and worth reading so so so do do manage to buy it but if anyone can answer the question about how do we kind of how do we use our research to try and oppose such or how do we use yeah to oppose such practices by by the effort you know israel as an apartheid state anyone wants to respond to your most welcome and then i have a question last maybe a question i'll go first with this one and it's great that this it's great that the student is doing the research in Jerusalem i think we have a huge weight of responsibility as researchers to communicate honestly and with integrity you know to the international community on what we on what we see and to not to not let this kind of these layers of intimidation to not let that silence us you know so we to keep speaking out to keep speaking out against terrorism to keep speaking out against against the abuse of anti-semitism and to keep to keep speaking and engaging with the with the international mechanisms and doing everything that we can and doing everything that we can in our power to ensure as well accountability and i i completely understand and living in constant fear we also live in live in fear and fear is it's it's it's very difficult you know to to live under these various to live under various looking over your shoulder not even sure if somebody is with the military are going to come into the institution and i know that her friends would have experienced this as well i mean there was the raids on on ademir and certainly since these terror designations the the fear has certainly escalated here and we're we're worried that there'd be arrests and detentions and we're also worried that there could possibly be you know torture practices because there has been torture practices against people working in other organizations and the health workers committee for example and there has been show trials of shatha ode the head of the health workers committee and others so we we we live in in constant fear and looking over our shoulder that this may happen but we also we also need to we need to counter we need to counter israel's narrative and israel's constant acts of regression and we need to keep speaking out and doing doing everything we can using all the mechanisms that they at the at the human rights council at the and internationally at the international criminal court using the pushing for another advisory opinion and using legal means you know and and peaceful means to counter this and i think eventually you know once we see once we see see real prosecutions at the international criminal court and the fruits of our work as well which are which which is coming to to to light like we have been relentlessly working for the last number of years engaging and documenting and monitoring and like we had the release of the UN database a few months ago we have the opening of the investigation and we're pushing now in relation to reconvening a special and committee on the apartheid at the at the UN level so we various we've we've various goals that we're working towards and we're using every we're using every single mechanism that we can and through legal and peaceful means and because this is working this is why israel is is trying to shut us down but we need to we need to continue our belief in the rule of law we need to continue our belief in peaceful means and to pass this on as well to the next generation that are coming up behind us and it's really important that the international community reach out and support our efforts because the reverse of this is so dangerous we're just a heartbeat away from sinking back into very grave and serious levels of violence we really need the the rule of law to be respected and these methods that we're using to be respected we we all work and and and believe in the UN system and we believe in international peace and justice and we believe in human rights for all and we need everybody else to support us in our pursuit of justice and in our pursuit of these beliefs and to continue speaking our truth and to protect and preserve our institutions thank you and there was a big thank you from one of the attendees saying we have to keep this up Sahar do you want to come in please I totally agree with what all Susan said and I would just add one small thing that in order to keep the hope especially for our own people like imagine if we fail in this case how you would convince anymore the Palestinian people that international law worth anything at the end of the day in bringing justice to Palestine so I would just recommend that I think in the level of universities beside the research there is a space for putting more and more pressure on your governments on the parliaments in your countries that they should take action I think international law without the political will without the political decisions it's not going to be implemented so this is why this part of activism in whether on the streets whether by sending letters whether by posts or there's so many tools nowadays how to push the governments I mean to respect their duties and to take actions on this specific case and on the main root cause for all these human rights violations the occupation itself thank you Sahar my question was also you know I really look forward maybe Susan you can share with us and we can you can we can perhaps put it on the website or whichever way we can do that the the website that you're going to launch in relation to either is it save the six or support the six because this is really important and I've been following the hashtags and the campaigns on social media platforms in relation to save the six because it's it's quite important to to follow that but I wanted to go back to a one particular point you mentioned because I think it's important to emphasize it which is the timing of the of the Israeli action and the timing in relation to the investigations taking place at the ICC so this is really important because as we all know Israel has been trying to counter or do everything possible to try and discredit any discussion at the ICC in relation to its illegal occupation and to the illegality of occupation so maybe if you could and also you know the other thing that I was struck by I come from a media background so we look a lot at discourse and language and we look at the context within which the language is used and of course the language of terror and anti-terrorism it just kind of responds to a wider context of western particularly western countries kind of using the discourse of terror in different ways for political purposes so perhaps if you could just briefly you know talk about the timing in relation to the ICC and you know whether there is any connection there or whether people have have thought about that and yeah maybe I'm wrong but I just feel there is something there absolutely like for us there has been like the the work that we're doing on the on the ICC is in itself I mean we've been talking about fear and terror but this this work that we're even doing and everybody who's working directly with the court on this there is there is kind of a there is a shroud of secrecy around this you know we we can't say too much about it but there's also there's also layers of fear and layers of and layers of layers of terror and this as well because Israel and the United States as well before it have been targeting the have been targeting the court and like only last year we had the U.S. executive order and which targeted the court and which designated which designated the the prosecutor of the court and others in the court and on a sanctions and placing them on a sanctions list and we were also expecting at this time because also allies of the United States such as Israel were also mentioned in this executive order and anyone who would have materially assisted the court would also potentially have been subject to sanctions so we were expecting a chilling effect from from this executive order so when the executive order was rescinded when the biden administration came in we feel that things changed track and because we had a huge success then a huge moment of success afterwards with the with the executive order rescinded and the move to open the investigation and we've been waiting and knowing that something something large will happen over this coming from Israel because there was such language as well around the around the progress of the investigation and we had Netanyahu you know calling the calling the opening of the investigation pure anti-semitism and as it was being treated as such was being treated as such as an attack you know against the state and as an attack on Jewish values so we were expecting we were expecting something you know of this nature to come and but also like I've been working with that hack for a number of years and I've been working since since 2013 I've been working on the we've been working on issues around international criminal law as well and we'd very serious attacks on the organization back around 2016 so we did with the attacks with the the detracts against our colleagues but we'd also various attempts we've also various targeted attacks in the organization itself and which a attack which issues around banks being approached in relation to funding that was coming into the organization and we'd all series of we'd all a series of very very strange and targeted attacks attacks on our computers and all of this kind of thing so we're we're used of expecting these kinds of assaults you know we can't always point the finger at Israel but we know Israel is behind them and so we're used to we're used of these kinds of very high level targeting and surveillance of us so it was it was no surprise when we found out that there was surveillance and the targeting of the phones of persons working on the on the ICC and then after that we were we were expecting something bigger and even to the point where when we like on the Monday we were going to have the the press conference on the the revelations around Pegasus and we knew even then when we were going to have this big reveal of the the Pegasus spyware we knew something would happen in between that we didn't know whether there might be raids on the organization but we knew something would happen and like this Sunday just the night before Israel designated the organizations under the military order and this this again is to deflect attention away from away from these away from these revelations but the timing there's always very close parallels with the timing it's always there's always like once we're about to do something Israel is has been monitoring listening into calls and and reacts in in some sort of way and as these kinds of attacks are always very closely aligned like we had been in conversations with the we've been in conversations directly with the court and we were having our strategy meeting the week of the like over in the Hague the week of the the terror designations like the timing of that is not lost on anybody it's directly related you know to the work on the court and as we go on and as individuals in the Israeli authorities and individuals in the Israeli military as they become more targeted with potential prosecutions we're going to see huge escalations here you know in the West Bank and massive even more aggressive targeting of persons in our organizations and we know this we know that we're we're expecting this and we we know this is going to happen we've already got a taste of this with the death threats there's also been other things that we can't there's other stuff that's happened that I can't discuss fully here but there's been a series of unpleasant things happen so we're expecting we are expecting more of the same. Michelle you want to come in and we probably have another five minutes or so before we you know kind of close the discussion. Michelle. Only to say that what you detailed and outlined both shows the importance and the significance of ongoing pressure as you say from outside but all of us to take on board the importance of continuing to pursue and push for these efforts and to maintain as much as possible both internal pressure on our respective governments in addition to following up and pushing for international efforts as you've said the timing doesn't seem lost on me and particularly after this discussion as both Ewan and Sahar and Professor Link have clearly outlined even although the particular allegations at the ICC are distinct and based on particular alleged war crimes from 2014 it may very well be seen by parties in question as being the beginning of much greater accountability efforts and this is what the fear is and that's why there has been this retaliation. Of course those allegations I don't have as much to substantiate them as you do both being NGOs working on this on the ground every day but it seems clear from what you've said today that that's part of what you're intimating is going on here so I guess my final question to you is is just is there anything else we can do to assist I can imagine that ongoing fear is is somewhat crippling and our thoughts are with you through through all of this just to say you have our solidarity and our ongoing commitment to to from the outside do what we can if there's additional avenues that you think of certainly do let SOAS school of law know and and others at SOAS who would be here as part of that effort but I don't know if there's anything further you wish to say or or Deena whether there's additional comments or questions you had. No thank you Michelle you put a tree very eloquently and you know very powerfully thank you so much. Sahar do you want to comment? I just wanted to thank you really for this very very important discussion and the only thing that any chance to keep it up all and to keep it in the conversation that would be very helpful. Yes we'll try and do that particularly when we have the website and we'll start tweeting and getting students involved in the activism as well that's quite important. Yeah and as you've clearly articulated Susan this is not an issue of taking a particular perspective politically it's about as you've said the importance of maintaining the fundamental freedoms that are at the heart of the international system. Yeah absolutely these attacks on the organizations these are part of the shrinking space and this is effectively eliminating the space for us to speak out and for us to operation work in so it's so important that we have our organizations protected and there's just the various means to do this you know there's a number of measures there's a number of measures which are happening internationally so there's a motion which was just passed in the Netherlands and we're looking and there's also a motion which has been prepared in the Catalonian Parliament you know so there's various legislative measures which are going through to support our organizations and this kind of support is really important at a political level because this is this is basically a political assassination of our organizations this is designed to completely cripple us so we cannot continue our work so to keep the voices to keep the voices raised and to keep a spotlight on this and also to ensure that the ensure that the funding and continues to flow into our organizations so that might mean and internet that might mean advocacy even at the even at the point with financial institutions you know to even approaching them you know to to to show that these organizations are legitimate organizations the acts of the terror designations are a legitimate acts they should not be recognized and to really push for political actors to fully support and continue to support us and we really appreciate everything that SOAS has done the statement the urgent appeal and if there's any room or leverage to take a look at that counterterrorism law as well that would be really great thank you very much I'm sure that your call will be you know heated by a lot of scholars or would-be scholars to try and look into that but just to say we are recording this so we'll put it on our website and we'll distribute the the conversation widely and to say thank you to all for joining us and it's been it's been amazing and so powerful and important thank you thank you thank you take care both of you bye bye thank you bye bye Michelle bye bye