Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs released a report titled "Terrorists in Suits: Links between NGOs that promote the BDS movement and terrorist organizations." The report seems full of dramatic exaggeration, especially the photos showing BDS activists taped to a billboard with red tools tied with red string, as if it were a scene from a crime drama.

In charge of the report is the Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs, Gilad Erdan, who seems to have a vivid imagination. Names, places, dates, events, meetings and photos are all jumbled together to present a scenario that is supposed to deter people from supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and wash away all of Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people. In doing so, the report simply promotes more myths and lies.

Every pro-Palestinian or pro-justice activist mentioned in the report is allegedly not what they seem. For example, the report cites an Israeli court's 2007 description of Shawan Jabarin, the director general of Al-Haq - one of the oldest human rights organizations in the occupied West Bank - as a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" figure. Citing "significant security concerns," the court upheld the army's decision to ban Jabarin from traveling abroad. Khalida Jarrar, deputy director of the human rights group Addameer, is similarly defined. She has been detained since 2017 under an administrative detention order due to her role as a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and accused of engaging in terrorist activities. Administrative detention allows Israel to hold people - almost always Palestinians - without charge or trial for a renewable six-month period.

One section of the Israeli report includes an attempt to present a piracy incident in the Mediterranean as some kind of heroic anti-terrorist act. When Israeli commandos attacked the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in 2010, the ship was part of a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. In international waters, with no respect for international law and human life, Israel detained the convoy and killed nine Turkish activists: İbrahim Bilgin, Çetin Topçoğlu, Furkan Doğan, Cengiz Akyuz, Ali Hayder Binci, Cevdet Kılıçlar, Cengiz Sungur, Fahri Yıldız and Necdet Yıldırım, and left the tenth, Ugur Süleyman Söylemez, so injured that he died after being in a coma for four years. In the end, Israel agreed to pay more than 20 million dollars to the families of the victims. However, Israeli propagandists working in Erdan's ministry are still engaged in demonizing these martyrs and distorting the truth about the attack.

The charges against these activists include appearing on al-Quds TV, which is owned by Hamas; promoting freedom flotillas to break Israel's blockade of Gaza; calling for a halt to arms sales to Israel; and organizing demonstrations in support of the Palestinian right of return, including the Great March of Return. Even if you went to Gaza to provide humanitarian aid and moral support to the Palestinians, you would be accused of terrorism. If you describe Israel as an apartheid state, you will be considered a terrorist, even though it meets all the criteria for that description.

In "Terrorists in Suits..." there is a blatant disregard for international law, UN resolutions and common sense, reflecting Israel's contempt for laws and conventions intended to protect vulnerable people and provide them with justice. Nowhere does the report indicate that its authors have the slightest awareness of Israel's brutal military occupation, under which Israel's courts and security apparatus are located. In fact, the report cites court rulings and reports from the Shin Bet, the internal security service, as if they were completely independent and objective, which is nonsense. Any opposition or resistance to an illegal and aggressive occupation is terrorism, and those who think differently should suffer the consequences.

According to Erdan and his team, no one is safe from these harsh accusations, whether civil organizations, Palestinian factions, intellectuals or activists. The report claims that 42 prominent NGOs out of about 300 international organizations promote the "delegitimization of Israel" and the BDS campaign against the Zionist state. According to the report, this alone is reason enough to label them as "terrorists" and discredit their noble work. According to the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, such activities are only acceptable when they support Israel; if they oppose it, they are considered "terrorism."

As US President George W. Bush said after 9/11, "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists." He left no room for middle ground; although it makes perfect sense to be against the U.S. military and terrorism at the same time. Israel has joined the bandwagon, so you are either with Israel or you are a terrorist; you can't be for justice if that justice will benefit the people of occupied Palestine. I wonder, when will Israel and its supporters wake up to the fact that pro-Palestine justice and peace activists are not the issue, and that the Israeli occupation is the crux of the issue?
Source: Middle East Monitor