Activities

• Leader in anti-Israel “lawfare” and BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) campaigns.
• Was an active participant in the 2001 Durban World Conference against Racism, which adopted the strategy of promoting the complete international isolation and demonization of Israel through boycotts, legal attacks, and other forms of political warfare.
• In January 2020, Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), of which Al-Haq is a member, vehemently opposed a new clause in European Union grant contracts with Palestinian NGOs that prohibits grantees from working with and funding organizations and individuals designated on the EU’s terror lists. According to media reports, PNGO claimed that Palestinian terrorist organizations are “political parties.”
  • On January 2, 2020, Al-Haq’s General Director Shawan Jabarin published a letter, “I Write to Resist,” criticizing and belittling the importance of the EU’s anti-terrorism clause by stating that the “newly added clause, commonly referred to as an anti-terrorism clause…could undermine the ability of Palestinian civil society organizations to engage with Palestinian society.” Jabarin further implied that Israel naming its main airport after David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding Prime Minister, “inspires (or incites) [] violent settler groups to act on the premise that the ends justify the means.”

Ties to the PFLP

• On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense declared Al-Haq a “terror organization” because it is part of “a network of organizations” that operates “on behalf of the ‘Popular Front’.”
• In May 2018, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express shut down online credit card donations to Al-Haq due to the group’s ties to the PFLP.
• In March 2022, Al-Haq invited Said Hamayel, “father of Mohammad Hamayel, 16, who was killed by the Israeli occupying forces,” to present a statement on the “ongoing and increasing suppression of Palestinian resistance in Beita village” at the UN Human Rights Council. The PFLP embraced both Mohammad and Said in a statement following Mohammad’s death, labelling them both “comrade[s]” in the internationally designated terrorist organization and producing an official mourning poster to honor Mohammad.
• Shawan Jabarin
  • Al-Haq’s General Director has ties to the PFLP terrorist organization and, as a result, has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan. Click here to see NGO Monitor’s unofficial translation of the ruling by the Israeli High Court of Justice (June 20, 2007).
  • In 2017, Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin participated in a panel discussion on “The requirement for supporting and the success of the national [Palestinian internal] reconciliation.” Jabarin joined the panel with Yahya Sinwar via video.
  • In July 2021, Jabarin attended an event in memory of Suha Jarrar, daughter of PFLP leader Khalida Jarrar and an Environmental and Gender Policy Researcher at Al-Haq. The hall was decorated with PFLP logos.
  • In February 2019, Jabarin participated in an event hosted by the PFLP in memory of “comrade fighter” Maher Al-Yamani. Al- Yamani was a PFLP “founder,” a “member of the Central Committee and one of its most prominent military commanders,” and “coordinated special operations…in particular the operation against an aircraft of the Israeli company El Al in July 1968 in Greece.”
  • In May 2019, Shawan Jabarin attended a memorial event organized by the PFLP. It centered on PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna, who, according to information posted by the PFLP, “contributed to the establishment” of several PFLP-affiliated NGOs. The hall was decorated with PFLP paraphernalia.
  • According to multiple Arabic-language media sources, Al-Haq General Director Shawan Jabarin represented the PFLP at a December 2011 meeting of the Follow-Up Committee for Issues of Public Liberties and Trust Building.  This body served as a reconciliatory body between Hamas, Fatah, PIJ, the PFLP, and other Palestinian factions.
    • According to coverage in the Al-Wafd news outlet, Jabarin, a “PFLP representative on the committee” announced his resignation after he was identified by his PFLP affiliation.  According to Al-Wafd, Jabarin complained that “classifying committee members according to their parties does not benefit its work, but complicates it and intensifies its problems. This [refraining from classifying party affiliation] is what I asked from the committee as its member.”
  • Jabarin was convicted in 1985 for recruiting and arranging training for members for the PFLP. A 1994 Israeli statement to the UN notes that he “had not discontinued his terrorist involvement and maintains his position in the leadership of the PFLP.”
  • In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected Jabarin’s appeal to travel abroad, stating that “the current petitioner is apparently acting as a manner of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, acting some of the time as the CEO of a human rights organization, and at other times as an activist in a terror organization which has not shied away from murder and attempted murder, which have nothing to do with rights…”
  • In 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court noted that Jabarin is “among the senior activists of the Popular Front terrorist organization.”
  • In 2009, Jabarin was again prohibited by the Israeli authorities from travelling abroad. Jabarin appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court which rejected his appeal, stating, “We found that the material pointing to the petitioner’s involvement in the activity of terrorist entities is concrete and reliable material.”
  • Shawan Jabarin is a former Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P) board member.
    • Several DCI-P board members have close ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
    • Hashem Abu Maria, coordinator of DCI-P’s community mobilization unit, was hailed by the PFLP as a “leader” after his death in 2014. On September 23, 2014, DCI-P uploaded a video of a memorial service for Abu Maria, featuring a speech by DCI-P General Director, Rifat Odeh Kassis. The courtyard where the memorial service took place was decorated with PFLP flags, posters, and pictures of prominent PFLP figures, such as founder George Habash and former leader Ahmed Sa’adat. Nearly all of the audience are dressed in PFLP apparel.

Pro-terror Concerning Rhetoric by Staff Members

• Aseel Al-Bajeh – Legal Researcher and Advocacy Officer
  • In October 2023, Al-Bajeh tweeted by quoting Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh, “Leave our land, get out of our faces.”
  • On October 12, Al-Bajeh tweeted, “We don’t need to speak of our right to resist, for it is not a right, but a way of being & survival for Palestinians. We don’t demand our right to narrate. Our ability to narrate was never out of our hands & resistance doesn’t need the pre- approval of static int’l law codes. Its not ‘our duty to expose the bloody barbarism of zionism, their actions as a fascist state & a ruthless army are more than sufficient to undertake this task. We remain attached to our land & in our humanity, as Pal Arabs no need to prove our humanity to those who have lost it.” (emphases added)
  • On June 21, 2021, Al-Bajeh shared a collage of several Palestinians killed in clashes with the IDF and tweeted, “Shedding Palestinian blood & destructing (sic) entire families and futures is Zionism!”
    • Among those featured in Al-Bajeh’s post were Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades members who had perpetrated several shooting attacks in the West Bank. Al-Bajeh also included photos of two Hamas members who murdered four Israeli civilians, including two minors, and wounded four others in a June 2023 shooting.
    • Other Palestinians featured in Al-Bajeh’s tweet were involved in violent riots and shooting attacks on Israeli forces carrying out arrests in Jenin on June 19, 2023.
  • On January 28, 2023, the day after seven Israeli civilians were murdered by a Palestinian gunmen outside of a Jerusalem synagogue, Al-Bajeh tweeted, “More context: why are settlers allowed to be in occupied Jerusalem, a war crime that the world recognises?” – suggesting that the murders were justified.  On January 29, 2023, Al-Bajeh tweeted, “Forcing Palestinians to Defend their Right to Resist is Another Complicity with Israel’s Colonialism.”
  • On May 16, 2021, Al-Bajeh posted on Facebook and Twitter, writing, “Resistance in its straightforward meaning is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people…” 
• Ziad Hmaidan – Head of training and capacity building
  • In October 2023. Hmaidan wrote on Facebook, “It is written in the Hadith: ‘You must wage jihad. The best jihad is preparing for war, and it is best to prepare for war in Ashkelon’.”
  • In October 2023, Hmaidan shared a picture on Facebook of a Palestinian terrorist Ibrahim Nabulsi aiming a gun, and wrote, “A message of intense love. The picture of one of the men of the ‘flood’ [referring to the name ‘the flood of Al-Aqsa’ given by Hamas to the murderous October 7 attacks], during a confrontation in one of the [Israeli] bases that was stormed [by Palestinian terrorists]. This picture carries a thousand signs and meanings. Observe the picture that the sniper of the flood stuck on his rifle. Do you recognize who is in the picture? This is the intense love is for Ibrahim [Nabulsi].”
  • On December 5, 2022, Hmaidan shared a picture of Omar Mana and wrote, “…May he and they [other deceased Palestinians] together have mercy and eternal life. May we have great patience and solace…The martyr Omar Mana, the martyr of dawn…”
    • Mana, referred to by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization as a “PFLP fighter” who died “while participating in armed clashes with occupation army forces.” According to the IDF spokesperson, during an operation to arrest PFLP members, “suspects threw stones, Molotov cocktails, and explosives at the troops.”

Political Advocacy

• In May 2024, Al-Haq was a signatory on a petition to the United Nations to “Declare Gaza a Famine-Stricken Zone.” According to the petition, “The actions and policies imposed by the Israeli occupation on the people of Gaza place it in a position of criminal responsibility…The United Nations and the Palestinian Authority must…push toward accountability and prosecution of the occupation for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
• In March 2024, Al-Haq published a report in which it euphemistically referred to terror attacks as “acts of struggle” in asserting that “Even if individual acts of struggle breach provisions of international humanitarian law in bello, never should the Israeli colonial power or the international community categorise the collective resistance of the Palestinian people in pursuit of their inalienable jus cogens right to self-determination as ‘terrorism’, and justify its policy of suppression accordingly.” (emphases added)
• In February 2024, Al-Haq was a signatory on a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the UN Office on Genocide Prevention’s “Inexcusable Failure to Address Israel’s Ongoing Genocide in Gaza.” According to the letter, “The UN cannot afford to stay silent in the face of the genocide currently taking place in Gaza.”
• In December 2023, FIDH, on behalf of its members including Al-Haq, published a resolution accusing Israel of the “ unfolding crime of genocide and other crimes in Gaza and against the Palestinian People.” (Read NGO Monitor’s analysis, “FIDH Declares Total Political War Against Israel.”)
• In November 2023, Al-Haq Legal Researcher and Advocacy Officer Ahmed Abofoul denied the abundance of evidence that Hamas systematically exploited Al-Shifa Hospital and other medical centers in Gaza for command and control centers, terror tunnels, weapons storage, hiding kidnapped hostages, and murdering kidnapped hostages, tweeting, “This is pathetic. Israel scandalously lied about the Hamas command centre in Al-Shifa Hospital. Israel is Pathologically lying, those who want to pretend or claim to seriously believe its nonsense are not only complicit in its crimes but also responsible for them. #GazaGenocide” (emphases added). 
• In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, Al-Haq was a signatory on a statement calling for “Immediate Action from the International Community to Stop Israel’s Reprisals against Palestinian Civilians” and referring to the atrocities as “Palestinian armed groups engaged in an operation in response to escalating Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.”  The NGOs called “upon the UN Security Council, Third States, and UN Member States to immediately intervene with all necessary means to cease Israel’s attacks against the Palestinian people, and to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel… and [force] the dismantling Israel’s apartheid regime.”
• In May 2023, following comments by the EU Commission President celebrating Israel’s Independence Day, Al-Haq was a signatory on a statement accusing the president of “using racist anti-Palestinian tropes and denying Palestinian history and the atrocities of the Nakba.”
• In May 2023, Al-Haq was a signatory on a statement “condemn[ing] the calculated and cold-blooded slow-killing of 45-year-old Khader Adnan—father, husband, Palestinian activist, and former prisoner—by the Israeli occupying authorities in the early hours of Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Khader was a reputed, revered, and resilient resistance actor within the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement”(emphases added).
  • Khader Adnan, a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad member arrested in February 2023 and indicted for membership in a terror group, supporting a terrorist organization, and incitement, died following his 86-day-long hunger strike and refusal to receive medical treatment from the Israeli Prisons Service.
• In April 2023, Al-Haq was a signatory on a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General urging the UN to reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. According to the letter, the IHRA definition “opens the door to labeling as antisemitic… findings of major Israeli, Palestinian and global human rights organizations that Israeli authorities are committing the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians.”
  • The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by nearly 30 countries and counting, represents the international consensus definition of antisemitism, as well as how to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. An example of the latter includes denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
• In August 2022, following criticism against the UN HRC’s permanent Commission of Inquiry’s use of antisemitic rhetoric, Al-Haq signed a joint statement “extend[ing] their full support and pledg[ing] their ongoing cooperation with the UN Commission of Inquiry on Palestine.” The statement affirmed that “the present Commission is a crucial step toward the recognition and remedy of Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime as the root cause of Israel’s perpetual violations of international law in Palestine.”
  • In July 2022, Commissioner Miloon Kothari made antisemitic comments on a podcast, claiming that the “Jewish lobby” controls social media and questioned whether Israel should have UN membership. In a letter to UNHRC President Federico Villegas, Commissioner Navi Pillay refused to condemn Kothari’s remarks, stating his comments “have deliberately been taken out of context…[and] deliberately misquoted.” Dozens of countries, UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed, and HRC President Federico Villegas condemned these remarks.
• In May 2022, Al-Haq was a signatory to a flagrantly antisemitic report submitted to the UN HRC’s permanent Commission of Inquiry against Israel. The submission presented a blatantly false historical account that denied Israel’s right to exist, categorized Israel’s very existence as illegal, and labeled Zionism as a form of racism, demanding that the Commission “Recognise and Address Zionist Settler Colonialism and Apartheid as the Root Causes of Israel’s Ongoing Violations.”
• In May 2022, Al-Haq was a signatory on a petition titled “The Return Appeal” calling on the United Nations to “take all necessary steps and measures for immediately holding the occupation’s state accountable for all the crimes, the latter has so far committed against the Palestinian people, within strict legal means that would not allow the occupation’s criminals to evade interrogation or possible trials.”
• In April 2021, Al-Haq Head of Legal Research and Advocacy Susan Power published a paper titled “The Legal Architecture of Apartheid.” According to the paper, “The State of Israel seeks to justify this discriminatory practice by claiming that Palestinians abuse their basic rights by engaging in and facilitating terrorist activity.  These laws, and their associated justifications and practices, are the legal basis of Israel’s apartheid regime.”
• In February 2021, Al-Haq published a joint policy paper titled “United States Policy on Palestine: 2021 and Beyond” calling for the “US to reevaluate its past blanket support of Israel” and “end the decades long environment of impunity that it has enabled for Israel to entrench its settler colonization and apartheid in the Palestinian territory.” The policy calls to “ban the import of all Israeli settlement products and services” and “End all military aid to Israel.”

Lawfare

• Regularly files lawsuits and submits politically motivated reports to the UN Human Rights Council and other international bodies.
• Proposed sabotaging the Israeli court system by “flooding the [Israeli Supreme] Court with petitions in the hope of obstructing its functioning and resources.”
• Al-Haq has submitted various documents to the International Criminal Court (ICC). (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2023, 2024) Al-Haq has also sent numerous letters to the ICC calling to open an investigation into Israeli actions. (2024, 2023, 2022.) 
  • On August 8, 2024, Al-Haq, PCHR, and Al-Mezan submitted joint amicus curiae to the ICC, demanding, inter alia, “the inclusion of the Rome Statute crimes of genocide, apartheid and crimes related to settlements, including direct or indirect transfer of settlers into occupied territory to the charges against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Minister of Defence, Gallant. The crime of genocide is being perpetrated without pause or remorse.”
  • In May 2024, Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR published a statement titled, “Netanyahu and Gallant Charged with International Crimes of Extermination, Persecution and Starvation in the Situation in Palestine.” According to the statement, “While we welcome the issuing of charges for crimes against humanity, there is also a public catalogue of genocidal statements of intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, including through the intentional denial of aid. For these reasons, genocide as an additional crime should be included in an amendment to the charges… For the last nine years, our organisations have submitted numerous communications to the ICC” (emphasis added).
  • In November 2023, Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) filed a lawsuit with the ICC to “Consider the inclusion of crimes against humanity, notably apartheid, and the crime of genocide, in the ongoing investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine” and “Issue arrest warrants expeditiously for those suspected of these crimes within the Israeli political, military, and administrative apparatus, especially President Isaac Herzog, prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant and others” (emphasis in original).
  • In October 2023, Al-Haq was a signatory on a letter to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to “Issue Arrest Warrants, Investigate Israeli Crimes and Intervene to Deter Incitement to Commit Genocide in Gaza.”
• Al-Haq has filed lawsuits in numerous countries seeking judgments that would force those governments to pursue genocide charges and adopt BDS measures against Israel
  • In December 2024, Al-Haq, alongside the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), PCHR, Al Mezan, and the LDH (Ligue des droits de l’Homme) filed a civil complaint with the War Crimes Unit of the Paris Tribunal against a Franco-Israeli soldier “who served in Gaza in the course of Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign against Palestinians. He is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, torture, and complicity in these crimes committed against Palestinians in Israeli custody.”
  • In October 2024, Al-Haq, alongside a coalition of Palestinian and Dutch NGOs, sued the Netherlands alleging that it “faili[ed] to prevent genocide in Gaza and other Israeli violations of international law” and demanding a “ban on the export and transit of weapons, weapon parts, and dual-use items to Israel and a ban on all Dutch trade and investment relations.” Following a November hearing in a District Court, the case was dismissed in December 2024 as “The State cannot be obliged to impose a general embargo…[and] the requested ban on trade contacts with Israel is rejected, because it has not been demonstrated that the State’s current trade policy is manifestly unlawful.” The Court also found “Al-Haq et al..to be in the wrong and must therefore pay the legal costs.”
  • In June 2024, Al Haq Europe and SOMO commissioned a legal opinion to “examine the legal consequences of the ICJ’s order for Third States and corporations.” The opinion recommends implementing an “Arms embargo… Sanctions …. [and] Criminal and administrative proceedings” against Israel.
  • In April 2024, Al-Haq supported a lawsuit filed by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) at the Administrative Court of Berlin against the German government for exporting weapons to Israel for use in Gaza. 
    • In June 2024, the Administrative Court in Berlin rejected the case on the grounds that the plaintiffs in the various cases “had not made it credible that decisions on arms exports were actually pending and that the Federal Government would fail to recognize the legal framework to be observed in future arms exports to Israel.”
    • In October 2024, Al-Haq, ECCHR, PCHR, and Al Mezan filed a renewed request for provisional measures with the Frankfurt Administrative Court “against German arms exports that could be used in Gaza.” In December 2024, the Frankfurt Administrative Court rejected the case claiming the “applicant was not entitled to make the application.”
  • On March 12, 2024, Al-Haq, alongside Oxfam Denmark, Amnesty International Denmark, and ActionAid Denmark,  announced they were suing the Danish National Police and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an attempt to stop Danish arms exports to Israel. According to the NGOs, “Denmark should not be sending weapons to Israel when there is a reasonable suspicion that it is committing war crimes in Gaza. We need to get the court’s word on Denmark’s responsibility.” 
    • In April 2024, in response to the lawsuit, Denmark announced that it would implement a “very restrictive approach” for military exports to Israel amid what it called the “disastrous consequences” of the war in Gaza. According to Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, “All arms exports to Israel, as applications will continue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”
  • In November 2023, Al-Haq, alongside European Legal Support Center (ELSC), SOMO, and the Rights Forum filed a criminal complaint with the Dutch Public Prosecutor accusing Booking.com of “laundering funds obtained from the commission of war crimes” and being “instrumental in facilitating the criminal Israeli settlement enterprise.” In May 2024, Booking.com rejected the allegations and affirmed, “we will permit listings anywhere in the world unless legally prohibited by the domestic laws…Currently, there are no applicable laws that prohibit listing properties in Israeli Settlements in the West Bank.”
  • In November 2023, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit on behalf of Al-Haq and Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), alleging that Israel’s “mass killings,” “widespread and systematic attacks on infrastructure,” and “forced expulsion” amount to “genocide.” The NGOs demanded that the “President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense adhere to their duty to prevent, and not further, the unfolding genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza,” as well as “take all measures within their power to prevent Israel’s commission of genocidal acts against the Palestinian people of Gaza.”
    • In January 2024, the Court dismissed the case. In a highly irregular note, the judge added that he believed the “current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide” and “implored” the White House to “examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
    • The NGOs appealed the decision and filed a brief in March 2024. In July 2024, a three-judge panel affirmed the dismissal. 
    • In August 2024, the NGOs filed a petition for rehearing en banc, claiming that the courts “have a constitutional duty to assess the legality of the Biden administration’s actions.” In October 2024, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied their petition for rehearing en banc.
  • In October 2023, Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) sent a letter to UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Kemi Badenoch, demanding that the UK “suspend all weapons export licences to Israel.” After the government refused to enact an arms embargo, Al-Haq and GLAN filed a legal action with the UK High Court, on December 6,  attempting to force a “halt [in] UK weapons sales to Israel over illegal attacks on civilians who are trapped and under siege in Gaza.”
    • In February 2024, the UK High Court dismissed the case as there was a “high hurdle” to establish that the UK had been irrational in its decision-making, and there was “no realistic prospect of that hurdle being surmounted.” The NGOs appealed the decision, and in April, a High Court judge granted a judicial review hearing for November 2024. Following the hearing, the Court announced it would make its ruling in early January. As of February, 2025, this has not yet happened. 
• In January 2024, Al-Haq Head of Legal Research and Advocacy Susan Power served as an advisor for the South African delegation to the International Court of Justice during proceedings against the State of Israel, alleging that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. 
• In 2010, filed a criminal complaint against the Dutch company, Riwal, for alleged complicity “in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.” The complaint was dismissed in May 2013.
• Supported the December 2009 arrest warrant secured in the UK by Hamas against Israeli opposition leader and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, claiming she bore “special responsibility for the war crimes and possible crimes against humanity that characterized Israel’s actions during the assault on Gaza.”
• Worked with Al Mezan to secure an arrest warrant in the UK against Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in September 2009.
• In 2008, Al-Haq, alongside the Bil’in Village Council, filed a lawsuit, Bil’in (Village Council) v. Green Park International Ltd. (Quebec, Canada 2008) accusing a Canadian company of “aiding, abetting, assisting and conspiring with the State of Israel” to commit “war crimes.” Canadian courts dismissed this case and imposed costs on the plaintiffs.
• In 2006, filed a case against the British government to end export licenses to Israel; it was dismissed by the UK Court of Appeal in 2008.  A similar case filed in 2009 was also dismissed in the preliminary stages.

Apartheid Rhetoric

• Al-Haq is part of a network of NGOs that promote artificial and manufactured definitions of apartheid to extend the ongoing campaigns that seek to delegitimize and demonize Israel. (Read NGO Monitor’s Policy Paper “False Knowledge as Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimise the Jewish State.”)
• In February 2023, Al-Haq, alongside Addameer and Al Mezan, published a submission to the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” (COI) accusing Israel of “Policies to Maintain and Entrench its Settler-Colonial Apartheid Regime: Violent Suppression of Demonstrations and Ensuing Wilful Killing and Injuries, Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Smear and Delegitimisation Campaigns against Human Rights Defenders and Organisations.” In their submission, in addition to the false accusations regarding Israel, the NGOs whitewash acts of violence by Palestinians, omitting core evidence linking Palestinians to terrorist organizations.  
• In September 2022, Al-Haq was a signatory on a call to the UN General Assembly to “Take Immediate and Effective Action to End Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians.”   According to the call, “Dismantling Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians must be central to the UN’s commitment to end racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance worldwide.”
• In January 2022, Al-Haq, alongside Habitat International Coalition and Addameer, submitted a joint report to then UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk claiming that “since its inception, the centrality of the racial dimension of Zionism has formed the foundation of Israel’s ever-lasting institutionalised racial discrimination and apartheid regime.” The NGOs called for the international community and the United Nations to “Recognize and condemn Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people; discharge their duty of nonrecognition and take effective measures, including stopping arms trade.”
• In April 2021, Al-Haq was a signatory on a joint submission to the UN Secretary-General on Intimidation and Reprisals for Cooperation with the UN, stating that “Since its establishment, Israel has created and maintained an institutionalised regime of racial domination and oppression, amounting to apartheid, over the Palestinian people as a whole…Israel has sought to fundamentally undermine key human rights and accountability work and thereby further entrenched impunity for its apartheid regime over Palestinians” (emphasis added).

BDS Activities

• In November 2023, Al-Haq was a signatory on a statement urging states to issue a “Two-Way Arms Embargo on Israel,” demanding that “The US, the UK, Germany, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and other States that authorise the continued transfer of arms, and other forms of military support to Israel to immediately bring an end to such transfers…and immediately halt the provision of any materiel, equipment or other commodity that may foreseeably be used in the commission of serious international law violations including international crimes.” 
• In September 2022, Al-Haq was a signatory on a letter to the European Union to “review its decision to revive the Association Council Meeting, stop the recently signed gas deal and review its bilateral cooperation programmes.” According to the call, “Instead of allowing Israel to entrench its colonial enterprise and apartheid regime, rewarding it with further economic cooperation and trade of harmful military equipment and technologies, the EU and its Member States have an obligation, and interest, to hold Israel accountable and put an end to impunity.”
• In February 2022, Al-Haq participated in a campaign titled “#StopTradeWithSettlements” calling “for an EU law that will end trade with illegal settlements once and for all.”
• In December 2021, at a conference held by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) opposing Israel’s declaring six NGOs, including Al-Haq, as terror organizations, Al-Haq Business and Human Rights Program Coordinator Wesam Ahmad stated that “The international community must respond with a systemic counter response that addresses Israel’s actions in various levels…We have to show that everything is connected. Supporting the process at the ICC, taking measures to ban settlement products, supports of the UN database on business enterprises involved in the settlement enterprise. These are all actions we have been calling for. The response to attempts to silence us should be met with the implementation of these calls” (emphasis added).
• In August 2021, Al-Haq signed a letter to the States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty calling to “put an end to Israel’s notorious use of arms and military equipment…by immediately imposing a comprehensive two-way arms embargo on Israel.” According to the letter, “This systematic brutality, perpetrated throughout the past seven decades of Israel’s colonialism, apartheid, pro-longed illegal belligerent occupation, persecution, and closure, is only possible because of the complicity of some governments and corporations around the world.”
• In June 2021, Al-Haq was a signatory on a letter to President Biden to “Halt Weapons Sales to Israel.”
• In May 2021, Al-Haq was a signatory on a statement calling to “Ban arms trade and military-security cooperation with Israel,” “Suspend free-trade agreements with Israel,” and “Ensure that individuals and corporate actors responsible for war crimes/crimes against humanity in the context of Israel’s regime of illegal occupation and apartheid are brought to justice.”
• In 2018-2020, Al-Haq lobbied intensively in support of the discriminatory UN database of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line, aimed at bolstering BDS campaigns against Israel. Al-Haq has signed multiple letters to the UN calling for the database to be implemented without further delay.
  • In January 2020, Al-Haq called for people to lobby their local parliamentarians to demand for the release of the database.
• In May 2020, Al-Haq was a signatory on a statement calling for “Immediate targeted sanctions to stop Israel’s annexation and apartheid.” The statement further called for “A ban on arms trade and military-security cooperation with Israel,” “Suspension of trade and cooperation agreements with Israel,” and “Investigation and prosecution of individuals and corporate actors responsible for war crimes/crimes against humanity in the context of Israel’s regime of illegal occupation and apartheid.”
• In January 2019, Al-Haq supported the Irish “Control of Economic Activity (Occupied territories)” bill which would make it illegal for Irish citizens and residents to import or sell “settlement goods” or to provide or attempt to provide “settlement services.”

Staff

• Wesam Ahmad
  • At a June 2017 CEIRPP conference, “United Nations Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation,” Wesam Ahmad, Al-Haq Program Assistant, remarked that Israel “was a colonial project from the very beginning and in fact Israel has been able to benefit from the historical colonial practices to develop what I call ‘best business practice model of colonization’.” (Video of this statement available on UN Web TV, at 1:29:22)
  • In March 2014, Ahmad participated in a conference held by the University of Amsterdam on the topic of the “role of the European Union in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the case of businesses invested in illegal settlements, labelling settlement products and EU’s commitments to respect and promote human rights.”
  • In July 2013, Ahmad told the Financial Times that “In our opinion it is not sufficient for the European Commission to punt responsibility to the consumer…The Europeans have obligations under international law to prohibit these goods by banning them from entering the market.”
• Raja Shehadeh
  • Shehadeh is a founder of Al-Haq and a member of Military Court Watch’s advisory board.
  • On March 20, 2017, spoke at SOAS on “Is Israel afraid of peace? Reflections on the failures of international law and human rights, and on sources of hope.” Shehadeh spoke about how it “is almost 50 years since the Six-Day War. The end of those hostilities witnessed the Israeli occupation of former Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza, and the displacement of 300,000 Palestinian citizens. After half a century of devastating regional conflicts a resolution to the situation appears no closer.”
  • In a 2012 interview with the ICRC, Shehadeh stated that “the occupation is of a colonial nature. Its aim ultimately is to encourage – certainly not by using force – the Palestinians to leave and to be replaced by Israeli settlers.” He furthered that a structure was introduced to “resolve the problem of how to apply Israeli laws to one part of the population and not to the other, and how to discriminate in an official, ‘legal’ manner between the two groups of inhabitants living on the same territory. This was how apartheid was introduced to the OPT.”
  • According to Shehadeh, “we cannot speak about the occupation without speaking about the settlements and the fact that people do not see Israel only as an occupier that controls certain aspects of their lives, but as a colonizer that is after their land. It feels like a cancerous growth that is eating up their body and making normal life impossible in every way.”
• Jonathan Kuttab
  • A member of Al-Haq’s General Assembly and Board of Directors, Kuttab also serves on the board of Sabeel.
  • Kuttab has advocated for a “one-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which seeks to eliminate Jewish self-determination. In December 2017, Kuttab gave a lecture titled “A Vision for One State in Israel/Palestine.” In 2009, Kuttab, wrote an article stating that “Zionism will ultimately need to redefine its goals and aspirations, this time without ignoring or seeking to dispossess the indigenous Palestinian population. Palestinians will also have to deal with this reality, and accept — even enthusiastically endorse — the elements required to make Jews truly feel at peace in the single new state that will be the home of both people.”
  • In September 2015, Kuttab participated in a conference titled “Waging Peace: Doing Justice Through BDS,” speaking about “Why should BDS be considered a strategy for doing justice in the Holy Land?” He will share BDS history, principles, variety, effectiveness, its use in the occupied territories, and as a strategy being used by churches, and peace/justice organizations.”
• In December 2010, Maureen Claire Murphy, managing editor of Electronic Intifada and a former Al-Haq employee, was subpoenaed by the FBI to appear before a Federal Grand Jury for her work with the Palestine Solidarity Group.