GUEST BLOG: Lois Griffiths – Who are the terrorists?

The Israeli regime is determined to suppress and silence any awareness of the suffering imposed on the Palestinian people. 

Israel has declared six Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations to be  as “terrorist” organizations. 

• Defense for Children International – Palestine is the only Palestinian human rights organization dedicated to the rights of children. It investigates, documents and exposes human rights violations against children in Israeli military detention, and provides legal services for them. 
• Al Haq is the leading Palestinian human rights organization seeking accountability for Israeli crimes in the ICC,  providing assistance to the ICC’s investigation of Israeli war crimes. 
• Addameer    provides legal support for Palestinian prisoners, documents arrests and administrative detentions, and works to end torture and other violations of prisoners’ rights. 
• The Union of Agricultural Work Committees plays a critical role in confronting illegal Israeli settlement expansion and theft of Palestinian farmers’ land. It advocates for sovereignty over natural resources in the face of the climate crisis and promotes sustainable farming. 
• The Bisan Center for Research and Development  is a community resource that develops youth programs and helps Palestinians assert their socioeconomic rights. 
• The Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees helps empower Palestinian women to achieve economic independence and counter gender discrimination. It provides legal and psychological support for women. 

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the decision would have “a chilling effect” on human rights defenders and it was an attack on freedoms of association, opinion and expression and the right to public participation. 

Bishop George Browning, president of APAN, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, declared “Not only are Palestinians having to defend their human rights, but their very advocacy for human rights is being criminalised.” 

Code Pink, an American NGO , has always been staunch, always been  creative and outspoken,  in its opposition to  oppression in many parts of the world. Code Pink is urging the US State Department to demand that Israel reverse these decisions.

Our own Government should make the same demand. Why are they so reluntant to insist that Palestinians be allowed to publicly stand up for their human rights?

We should  think internationally,  “We are all in this together.”

What is terrorism anyway? 

Experienced journalist Glenn Greenwald has written, “  I’ve spent years arguing that the word “terrorism” in the hands of western governments has been deprived of all consistent meaning other than “that which challenges our interests”. 

Noam Chomsky, in his book Media Control: TheSpectacular Achievements of Propaganda , has written “It’s only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it’s not terrorism.”

Lois Griffiths is a Human Rights Activist.