On July 29, Israeli forces raided the office of Defense of Children International (DCI) - Palestine, confiscating computers and case files relating to Palestinian children facing trial in Israeli military courts. Read DCI Palestine’s statement on the raid, and C&SN’s statement on the escalation of Israel’s campaign to undermine Palestinian civil society. (July 29).
Eelco Kessels and Melissa Lefas of the Global Center on Cooperative Security call for increased engagement with civil society in the development of UN counterterrorism policies, arguing that “open debate and discourse can and does affect change.” Read their piece in Just Security. (July 27).
Shirin Sinnar, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, argues that the practice of classifying acts of terrorism perpetrated by Muslims as “international terrorism,” even in situations where there is little or no evidence of international support or ties, strips Muslim Americans of rights and protections afforded to those who commit acts of “domestic terrorism.” Read her take in Just Security. (July 26).
Food insecurity in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is increasingly dire due to the Ethiopian government’s “strategy of officially permitting humanitarian access while in practice working to frustrate it.” Read the full story in the New York Times. (July 29).
In this episode of Pandemic Planet, a CSIS podcast, Jacob Kurtzer and Erol Yayboke look at how COVID-19 has impacted migrants, displaced people, and refugees around the world, and at how the humanitarian sector has worked to address challenges emanating from the pandemic. Listen to the episode here. (July 28).
Tom Dannenbaum, Assistant Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, explores the legal mechanisms through which Ethiopian authorities could be held accountable for the war crime of using starvation as a tool of war. Read the full article in Just Security. (July 26).
A new partnership between the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and PayPal to “investigate how ‘extremist and hate movements’ use financial tools to fundraise,” has rights groups concerned that ADL’s practice of conflating criticism of Israel with anti-semitism will lead to PayPal’s deplatforming of groups that stand up for Palestinian rights. Last year, over 100 civil society organizations signed an open letter calling on progressive organizations to drop their partnerships with ADL. Organizations can still sign onto the letter here. Read Electronic Intifada’s report on the ADL-PayPal partnership here. (August 2).
Corinne Graff and Tyler Beckelman of the US Institute for Peace (USIP) outline five benchmarks for successful implementation of the Global Fragility Act, legislation passed in 2019 designed to mitigate conflict by addressing its root causes. Read the full article here. (July 28).
Helen Yaffe, a senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, argues that U.S. sanctions against Cuba are undermining the very freedoms that the Biden administration claims to support, comparing the disconnect between its rhetoric and its actions to “blaming a person for not swimming well when they are chained to the ground.” Read her take in the Guardian. (August 4).
