Academics for Palestine condemns the recent raids by Israeli forces on Palestinian human-rights organisations – the brutal and inevitable follow-up to last autumn’s designation of the NGOs as terrorist entities.

As we noted last year when we urged AfP supporters to email Irish and international officials to protest the ominous development, the organisations have received funding from Irish Aid, their staff members have studied in Ireland under Irish government scholarship programmes, and many Irish citizens have worked for them over the years. As such, this is also a frontal attack on Irish foreign policy, on Irish overseas aid, on the Irish education sector, and on the future of such exchanges and partnerships.

The seven organisations targeted are Al-Haq, Addameer, Defence for Children – International, Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Union of Health Workers Committees. Along with their other important work, they have been vital in producing well-researched reports that have been valuable to academics and others seeking to understand, explain and expose the situation in Palestine. Researcher Ubad Aboudi, director of the Bisan Center, was already detained in 2019, and has been prevented from travelling to international conferences before and since the designation of his organisation’s research as ‘terrorist’.

While they directly attack the work of these important organisations, the bans and raids are also designed to shut down debate by impeding the freedom to speak and protest the occupation more broadly – so that activists and researchers across Israel and Palestine live in constant fear of similar persecution.

AfP believes the Irish government and the EU must press the Israeli government to rescind the designation and end its attacks – with pressure including diplomatic and economic sanctions imposed against Israel.