Habitat International Coalition

Activities

• Habitat International Coalition (HIC) is “an independent international nonprofit Coalition of organisations and individuals working in the field of human settlement.” HIC comprises over 450 NGOs from 80 countries.
• The highly politicized HIC-MENA website disseminates thinly veiled anti-Israel propaganda.. Blatant anti-Israel articles appear in its news section and documents

Political Advocacy

• HIC’s website includes a “Housing and Land Rights Violation Database” that documents “the world’s most-common housing and land rights violations.” According to the database, there are over a million “affected persons” in Israel/Palestine.
• Publishes a yearly newsletter titled “Land Times” that discusses “insights on regional developments that identify the human rights dimensions of land” in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.
  • The March 2017 issue included an article titled “Remembering Palestine in 2017” referring to Palestine as a “besieged habitat…which continues to run the gamut of habitat rights issues characterizing land conflicts,” as well as alleging that the “JNF has maintained a cross-border operation of organized population transfer and colonization not only throughout historic Palestine, but also from tax-exempt bases in some 50 other sovereign states.”
• In May 2024, HIC was a signatory on a statement claiming, “Palestinian resistance, combined with the sustained and strategic efforts of the global solidarity movement, is the only way through which the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip will end, Israel’s colonial-apartheid regime will be sanctioned and dismantled, and colonial states will be held accountable for their complicity.”
• In January 2024, HIC was a signatory on a joint statement “commend[ing]” South Africa on its application to the International Court of Justice invoking the Genocide Convention against Israel, alleging, “If a majority of the world’s nations call for a ceasefire, yet fail to press for prosecution of Israel – what is to stop Israel from ethnically cleansing all Palestinians?”
• In November 2023, HIC was a signatory on a statement asserting that “The current war in Gaza is not an isolated event but is deeply rooted in ongoing colonization, illegal occupation, systemic injustices, and historical oppression of Palestine by an apartheid state. Israel has repeatedly disregarded the international humanitarian law and human rights principles that demand the protection of civilians, especially in conflict zones, as it escalated its genocidal attacks in Gaza.”
• In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, HIC falsely stated, “The 7 October attacks mostly targeted sites of current and historic Israeli military activity, including the conduct of war crimes and crimes against humanity…Habitat International Coalition (HIC) condemns colonialism anywhere, and the century of colonization of Palestine by self-identified Jewish settlers, in particular. Their Zionist ideology is an abomination of the loftiest of common religious principles, including those of Judaism…The international community, the UN, its bodies and commissions must address the root causes of the conflict and the ensuing cycle of violence playing out across Palestine. These include the inherently colonial, racist and apartheid ideology of Zionism.”
• In May 2023, HIC was a signatory on a statement calling on “States, the UN, international organisations and civil society organisations from around the world to take effective legal and political measures to bring perpetrators of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Situation in Palestine.” The statement further called on ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to “expedite his investigation and start issuing arrest warrants, and deliver justice to Palestinian victims of mass atrocity crimes.”
• In August 2022, HIC was a signatory on a letter to President Biden condemning the decision by Israel to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the letter, “The targeted organizations form part of the bedrock of Palestinian civil society that has been protecting and advancing Palestinian human rights for decades across the full spectrum of issues of global concern.” The letter also called to “Suspend U.S. military funding to the Israeli government and cease any diplomatic efforts that enable systemic impunity for Israel’s gross violations of internationally-recognized human rights.”
  • In November 2021, HIC published a statement claiming that “These organizations are among the most-respected and most-effective working in occupied Palestine, internationally renowned for their human rights documentation and monitoring, analysis and advocacy.”
• In May 2021, on the occasion of Nakba day, HIC published a statement accusing Israel of “judaizing Jerusalem” and calling to “bring the perpetrators to trial and be accountable before the International Criminal Court.” HIC further wrote “The only future for the peoples of the region will be based on justice, not with Zionism.”
• In March 2021, HIC was a signatory on a statement to the UN Human Rights Council alleging that “By systematically designing and implementing policies of displacement and dispossession tailored to forcibly transfer Palestinians, replacing them with Israeli settlers, to maintain Israel’s settler-colonial enterprise and apartheid regime, Israel continues to violate Palestinian rights, including the Palestinian inalienable right to self-determination, and right of return; while continuing to enjoy an unlawful culture of impunity.” The statement further called for the Human Rights Council to “establish an independent Human Rights Council fact-finding mission into Israel’s apartheid regime.”
• In 2020, HIC Coordinator of the Housing and Land Rights Network Joseph Schechla participated in a Stop the Jewish National Fund UK webinar series aimed at “explor[ing] the role of the Jewish National Fund in the historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
• In July 2020, HIC was a signatory on an urgent appeal to the United Nations referring to Israel’s alleged “shoot-to-kill policy” as “contributing to the maintenance of Israel’s apartheid regime of systematic racial oppression and domination over the Palestinian people as a whole, which, embedded in a system of impunity, prevents Palestinians from effectively challenging Israel’s apartheid policies and practices.”
• In April 2020, HIC signed a letter to the ICC calling for relevant actors to “demonstrate support for the ICC in the face of U.S. and Israeli attacks on the Rome system and international justice” and “cooperate with…any possible investigation into the situation in Palestine.”
• In September 2019, Joseph Schechla participated in a side event at the 42nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council titled “Gaza 2020- Uninhabitable.” At the event, Schechla referred to the World Jewish Congress, Mekorot (Israeli water company), and other institutions as “sisters of apartheid.”
• On August 29, 2017, Joseph Schechla wrote an article on the “Anatomy of ISIL in the Middle East,” discussing how “the ISIL phenomenon ironically has its roots in deep anomalies and double standards of the interstate system itself. This is only symbolically reflected in the contemporary acronym of ISIL, which corresponds with the abbreviation for the so-called ‘Islamic state’ (IS) joined to the binomial code for the State of Israel (IL). This coincidence of acronyms completes the analogy of the respective Jihadist and Zionist movements and their common attributes at the expense of indigenous Middle East peoples. Just as one follows the other in time, the participants in the former-named (IS) may be counting on the same seamless impunity long enjoyed by its latter-cited predecessor (IL).”
• In 2015, HIC published a book titled “The Land and Its People: Civil Society Voices Address the Crisis over Natural Resources in the Middle East/North Africa” that included a chapter accusing Israel of “transform[ing] Jerusalem into a demographically Jewish city by applying its domestic laws and institutions privileging legal and natural persons holding “Jewish national” status, at the material expense and disadvantage of the indigenous Palestinian Jerusalemites.” The book made comparisons between “Israeli occupation” and “apartheid South Africa” and refers to the Separation barrier as an “Apartheid Wall.”
• On July 2014, HIC, together with Al-Haq, Addameer, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), issued a joint letter titled “10 Years after the Advisory Opinion on the Wall in Occupied Palestine: Time for Concrete Action,” stating that, “High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions are further obliged to exercise domestic and universal jurisdiction, in order to pursue and prosecute or extradite actors that have been or are involved in grave breaches of IHL…States must pursue and prosecute the authors of international crimes, codified inter alia in the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute of the ICC, in accordance with their international obligations.”
• In 2009, Schechla advocated for legal action in the US to strip “para-state institutions” organizations (i.e., JNF and WZO) of their charitable status.

Apartheid Rhetoric

• In November 2022, HIC Coordinator of the Housing and Land Rights Network Joseph Schechla was one of the authors of Palestinian NGO Al-Haq’s report “Israeli Apartheid: Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism.” The antisemitic report defined Zionism and the State of Israel as inherently illegitimate and extorted the international community to dismantle the Jewish State. The report also called on Member States of the UN General Assembly to “adopt a resolution to reconstitute the UN Special Committee against Apartheid and the UN Centre against Apartheid to address Israeli authorities’ commission of the crime against humanity of apartheid against the Palestinian people as a whole, and empower these bodies to proactively pursue the dismantlement of Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime.”
• In May 2022, HIC was a signatory on a flagrantly antisemitic report submitted to the UN HRC’s Commission of Inquiry which was established to “investigate” crimes allegedly committed by Israel since April 13, 2021. The submission called to “Recognise and Address Zionist Settler Colonialism and Apartheid as the Root Causes of Israel’s Ongoing Violations.” 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.
• In January 2022, HIC, alongside Al-Haq 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 November 2019, HIC submitted a joint report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) alleging “the manner in which Israel has maintained its apartheid regime, embedded in a system of impunity and the inability to meaningfully challenge Israel’s suspected crimes, which underpin Israel’s continued domination over the Palestinian people as a whole.” The report further called for the “opening of an investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC into the situation in Palestine, as a viable independent judicial body capable of ending impunity for crimes committed against the Palestinian people and effectively deterring the commission of future crimes.”

BDS Activities

• In November 2024, HIC was a signatory on a call to “Impose a comprehensive three-way military embargo on Israel…Impose targeted sanctions, including the suspension of diplomatic relations with Israel, financial sanctions, and the suspension of trade and cooperation agreements until Israel ends its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), its settlement enterprise, annexation, persecution, racial segregation, and apartheid against the Palestinian people…[and] Impose sanctions on complicit actors, including Israeli and international corporations and institutions involved in Israel’s breaches of international law and international crimes.”
• In November 2023, HIC 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 February 2023, HIC was a signatory on a statement “welcom[ing] the historic announcement by the Barcelona City Council to suspend all institutional relations with apartheid Israel.” The statement called for “arms embargo against apartheid Israel, stopping trade with Israel’s illegal colonial settlements, and ending projects and agreements that sustain the illegal situation, including the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the EU-Israel Association Council, international agreements for gas pipes through the Gaza coast, and the Euro-Asia Interconnector project receiving electricity from Israel’s colonial settlement enterprise.”
• In September 2022, HIC endorsed a report by Al-Haq and Just Peace Advocates calling to “Update the UN database annually” and “Continue to exert the necessary efforts to ensure transparency and promote accountability for business activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, to counter the pervasive impunity stemming from corporate- related violations and grave breaches of international law in such contexts.”
  • The UN BDS “blacklist” of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line selectively targets Israel apart from all other nations, is aimed at economically damaging companies that are owned by Jews or do business with Israel, and is ultimately meant to harm the Jewish State.
• In March 2020, HIC was a signatory on a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet “welcome[ing]” the release of the discriminatory UN database of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line, aimed at bolstering BDS campaigns against Israel. According to the letter, the signatories “look forward to continuing to work with the OHCHR, with a view toward ending corporate impunity for profiting from grave breaches of international law.”
• On March 27, 2017, HIC published the International Federation of Human Rights’ (FIDH) report titled “French Banks’ Dangerous Liaisons with the Israeli Settlement Enterprise,” that called on the French government to force French banks and insurance companies to “disengage without delay from any financial link with Israeli banks.” The report also lobbied for “a legislative proposal prohibiting enterprises from all sectors to invest in the settlements.”
• In March 2016, Schechla stated that “Divestment from companies that transact with or profit from violations of occupation and colonization is no more or less than a selective purchasing procedure to avoid collaboration with an illegal situation defined now in criminal law. Such divestment is mandatory under the peremptory norms. States and their public institutions do not enjoy the discretion to collaborate with illegal situations.”
• In March 2009, HIC called for the “endorsement of boycott, divestments, sanctions.” According to HIC, “Now is the time to accelerate the international campaign for BDS. This successful strategy has been used in many human rights efforts including the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.”

Key Members

• Al-Mezan
  • Highly active in anti-Israel lawfare campaigns, exploiting courts and international legal bodies to seek arrest warrants against Israeli government officials, file lawsuits against companies and governments doing business with Israel, and lobby for cases against Israelis at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
  • A number of Al Mezan officials and employees are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP) and Hamas – both designated as terrorist organizations by the US and the EU.  Additionally, Al-Mezan officials and board members speak at PFLP events, and many have posted material on their social media accounts promoting terror groups or utilizing antisemitic imagery and rhetoric. For more information on Al Mezan’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Al Mezan Center For Human Rights’ Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”
• Al-Haq
  • Al-Haq is a leader in anti-Israel “lawfare” campaigns and BDS activities.
  • 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.
  • 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’.”
  • Al-Haq General Director Shawan Jabarin is tied to the PFLP. As a result, his requests for Israeli exit visas have been denied on several occasions, and he has been denied entry by Jordan.  In a series of court cases in 2007-2009, the Israeli High Court of Justice found Jabarin to be a senior PFLP activist (2007, 2008, 2009).
  • In May 2019, 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.
• Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ)
  • Among the leaders of the political warfare against Israel, seeking to further boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), false accusations of Israeli “apartheid” and “racism,” and support for a Palestinian “right of return”, which is inconsistent with two-state solution.
  • In April 2019, ARIJ released a “Daily Report” that included the classic antisemitic attack on the Talmud in its rhetoric used against Israel. The report claimed that “over 250 settlers, stormed an archaeological site in Al-Jib village…and performed Talmudic rituals” and accused Jews of performing “Talmudic rituals in celebration of Jewish holidays” and performing “Talmudic rituals in the town.” In a February 2017 report, ARIJ claimed that the “Talmudic rituals” were in “blatant provocation to local residents.”
• BADIL
  • Founded to promote a Palestinian “right of return” and a leader of international BDS campaigns. BADIL holds annual “right of return contests” and has published antisemitic cartoons on its website, as well as imagery promoting the elimination of Israel, which is a widely recognized form of antisemitism. A cartoon that won a monetary prize for 2nd prize in BADIL’s 2010 Al-Awda Nakba caricature competition is a blatant representation of classic antisemitic tropes, including a Jewish man, garbed in traditional Hasidic attire, with a hooked nose and side locks.
• Land Research Center
  • Accuses Israel of “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “Judaization,” “violating the very basic rights of humanity,” and “vicious violations.”
  • Land Research Center claims that the Balfour Declaration “placed a toxic dagger in Palestine that aims at restricting the advancement of the Arab Nation and disconnecting its east from its west,” and is part of a “continuous conspiracy.” LRC outlines “the conspiracy in years,” which also includes the American war in Iraq, the “Fatah-Hamas conflict,” and the Arab Spring.
• Mossawa
  • Utilizes “various methods, including governmental advocacy in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and government, international advocacy with a particular focus in Europe, the United States, and South Africa,” and “contributed several position papers used in the decision making processes of international actors such as the UN, EU, and the US state departments.”
• Stop the Wall
  • Stop the Wall “has been the main national grassroots body mobilizing and organizing the collective efforts against the Apartheid Wall.”
  • In 2018, credit card donation facilities withdrew services from Stop the Wall “following complaints that they were linked to a terrorist organisation and to the Boycott Divestments and Sanctions movement.”
  • Salah Khawaja, a “leader” with Stop the Wall was “an active member of the blacklisted Popular Front Liberation Party.” He was arrested by Israeli security forces seven times between 1983 and 1992 and served five years in prison between 1992 and 1997.