Editorial Suppression of International Solidarity: Another Israeli Strategy to Continue the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

By BADIL Editors

International solidarity with the Palestinian people has played a crucial role in advocating and supporting our people’s struggle for liberation, self-determination and return. For the Palestinian people, who are facing the Israeli system of domination with the three pillars of forced displacement and transfer, colonization and apartheid, international solidarity is essential.

Third States are obliged by their responsibilities under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, to respect, protect and fulfill the rights and freedoms of all individuals within their territories, including that in terms of freedom of opinion and expression and assembly, without distinction on any basis. This extends to solidarity positions expressed with oppressed and colonized peoples’, such as the Palestinian people.

Unfortunately, effective international solidarity organizations, groups, movements and actors are not immune to suppression. Israel, along with its colonial allies, complicit states, and Zionist bodies and organizations, fortified by benefiting enterprises, has orchestrated an intricate transnational system that cracks down on, and silences any dissent or attempts that threaten Israel’s colonial-apartheid regime and its control over Palestine and its people.

The space for the Palestinian people, their civil society organizations, and their voices and advocates has long been targeted and criminalized, resulting in continuous shrinking of their space. The previous issue of Al-Majdal titled “Shrinking Spaces in Palestine: An Israeli Colonial Strategy to De-Politicize Palestinian Civil Society” explores what the strategies and the tools to repressing and silencing Palestinians and their civil society looks like.[1]

This issue proceeds to expose the mechanisms and strategies utilized, and the actors involved, in suppressing international solidarity with Palestine. Understanding the interconnected pillars of both faces of the attack on international and Palestinian civil space further exposes how the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime maintains the Ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people with not only complete impunity but also with the complicity of states and companies. 

From documenting the Israeli crimes and atrocities and raising awareness about their illegality; to lobbying for cutting ties with Israel; and the strategic advocacy carried out to hold Israel accountable for its human rights violations and international crimes at the United Nations and other international bodies, international solidarity actions have taken various forms and powerfully penetrated multitude global arenas. Strong international solidarity groups have also performed direct actions; using social and online media to increase awareness and support; protests and demonstrations; calling for the liberation of Palestine, unarming and sanctioning Israel; and boycotting and divesting from companies and products complicit in its human rights violations and international crimes.

BADIL extends its high appreciation to the great authors of the 61st Issue of Al-Majdal Magazine and its gratitude for their patience and understanding, for the delay in publishing due to external factors beyond our control. Kindly note that this version was planned for publication within the first quarter of 2023 of which the articles’ content and statistics clearly demonstrates. In spite of and also due to the current context characterized by the ongoing Israeli Genocidal War on the Gaza Strip, the theme and content of the articles remain relevant - as the suppression of international solidarity for the Palestinian people has increased using many of the tools mentioned by the authors. BADIL is delighted to finally publish Al-Majdal’s Issue #61, underscoring the invaluable efforts and content put forward by the authors.

Colonial tools strategically used to suppress international solidarity for Palestine

The articles in this issue of Al-Majdal Magazine present a selection of colonial tactics, strategically utilized by Israel and its allies to eliminate voices and actions advocating for Palestine.

The first article of this issue addresses one of the most insidious tools in Israel's colonial arsenal: equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Achieved through the systematic weaponization of anti-Semitism allegations to undermine and de-legitimize voices challenging Zionism and its colonial project in Palestine. Central to this mechanism is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which plays a pivotal role in silencing voices critical of Israel, as the second article explains. Manipulative accusations of anti-Semitism serve a dual purpose: to vilify Palestinian solidarity activists and to provide Israel with an impervious shield against international accountability.

Anti-BDS laws are also a preferred weapon in the arsenal of tactics employed to suppress international solidarity and advocacy for Palestine, as discussed in the third article. Israel has waged a relentless campaign against the BDS Movement, which calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, attempting to undermine its effectiveness.[2] Israel and its proxy Zionist organizations systematically pursue and lobby states to criminalize this movement by enacting anti-BDS legislation worldwide, a topic that Al-Majdal’s fourth article explains. Further, the fourth article  demonstrates how by painting the BDS movement and its supporters as anti-Semitic, terrorist in nature and a violation of public order, even within the legal framework of many European member states. Israel and its allies seek to stigmatize, delegitimize, and ultimately quash a movement legitimized by international law and deeply rooted in justice.

Article five discusses that even though some prominent universities have a history of support for human rights, they make an ‘exception’ when it comes to Palestine. Student members of student bodies like Law Students for Justice in Palestine speak about the pushback of accusations of anti-Semitism, censorship, intimidation and harassment they face, with the ultimate goal of deterring Palestinian rights advocates from speaking out.

In article six, Al-Majdal further explains how the battleground for cracking down on solidarity with Palestine has extended into cyberspace. The Israeli regime and affiliated entities have made extensive efforts to censor the online advocacy for Palestine; carried out through content removal, shadow banning, and account suspensions, often with extreme moderation of content that documents, highlights and supports the Palestinian struggle. Social media platforms have become instruments of digital suppression that deny the Palestinians and their supporters’ the rights to freedom of expression, and digital assembly perpetuating the criminalization of digital advocacy for them.[3]

Article seven addresses how Israel, with the backing of major tech companies, and spywares employs advanced surveillance technologies to monitor and intercept communications of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists. The cooperation between the Israeli regime and its officials and social media companies and big techs further perpetuates, underscores and manifests the extent of the suppression of the Palestinian reality, voices and Palestine solidarity and advocacy worldwide, based on illegal grounds and violation of privacy among other basic human rights.

Article eight, analyzes how the Palestinian unity narrative has been positively consolidated in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council despite Israel’s attempts to silence Palestinians and advocates for Palestine. The author sheds light on how the Israeli propaganda at the UN performs an extension to Israel’s foreign policy. Israel is assisted by proxy organizations that aid in its attempts to discredit advocacy work for Palestine through smear campaigns, defamation and conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Even UN experts are not immune to the threats, false allegations and smear campaigns, among other tactics employed to silence, intimidate and alienate them from advocating for Palestinian rights. A struggle that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, conveys in article nine. 

Finally, the last article explains how Israeli parastatal organizations, particularly the Jewish National Fund (JNF), have a significant role in establishing Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism, and how it plays as an agent to both the ongoing ethnic cleansing and the erasure of the truth.

The colonial tools demonstrated in this issue of Al-Majdal - while not exhaustive - have significant impact, are intricately tied to the broader colonial apparatus, and  seek to undermine global solidarity with Palestine, and thereby undermine the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation, self-determination and return.