Bi-weekly News and Opinion Roundup - November 11, 2021
News from C&SN
A bill introduced by Sen. James Risch (R-ID) includes broader exceptions for civil society programs in Afghanistan than OFAC’s general licenses. Read C&SN’s summary of the bill here. (November 11).

Megan Corrado of Alliance for Peacebuilding and Paul Carroll of the Charity & Security Network address the administration’s recent sanctions policy review, highlighting its failure to mention let alone take steps to protect peacebuilding and other critical civil society operations. They call on Congress to step in. Read their take in Just Security. (November 2).

In a letter to the Secretary of State Blinken, C&SN called on the State Department to view any “evidence” offered by Israel in support of its designation of six Palestinian NGOs with extreme scrutiny given Israel’s track record of working to suppress Palestinian civil society, and given its associations with a network of lawfare and disinformation groups documented in a recent C&SN report. The letter also calls on the U.S. to use its influence with the Israeli government to push for a reversal of the designations. Read the full letter here. (October 29).
Featured Resources
Charities Aid Foundation America and the Charity & Security Network joined forces to produce a new report, When the Giving Gets Tough: Navigating Risk in Sanctioned Locations, which aims to provide donors, civil society practitioners, and other stakeholders with an overview of how U.S. sanctions are implemented, the challenges their implementation often poses for civil society organizations, and the risks associated with charitable giving in sanctioned locations—along with strategies for managing those risks. Read the full report here. (November 5).

The World Humanitarian Action Forum recently released a report offering key takeaways from its 2020 summit on humanitarian aid, covering topics such as the future of humanitarianism, decolonizing aid, local coordination and representation, and more. Read the full report here. (November).
Event
On Thursday November 18, at 10 am eastern, join us for a presentation of C&SN’s recent report: The Alarming Rise of Lawfare to Suppress Civil Society – the Case of Palestine and Israel. A briefing on the report and its major findings and recommendations will be followed by a panel discussion with a legal expert and representatives of groups impacted by lawfare attacks, moderated by C&SN Director Paul Carroll. A recording of the event will be posted here after the event concludes. Register for the event here. (November 18).
Counterterrorism
Eric Rosan, a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (UK), unpacks the consequences of the international community’s failure to build consensus on the definition of terrorism in the course of 20 years of implementing counterterrorism policies. Read his take in Just Security. (November 4).
Humanitarian Access
Oxfam reports that 6.9 million people in Northern Ethiopia are in need of emergency food assistance following a year of conflict, and calls on all parties to deescalate, allow humanitarian organizations the access they need to deliver aid, and to pursue a sustainable peace. Read more on Oxfam’s website. (November 3).
Israel's Assault on Palestinian Civil Society
Israel’s Supreme Court recently denied tax-exempt status to an Israeli organization that runs a school in the West Bank, claiming that running a school for Palestinian children in the West Bank did not amount to a “public purpose.” Read more about the ruling in the New Arab. (November 8).

Spyware from the surveillance company NSO Group has been found on the phones of six Palestinian activists, half of whom belong to the organizations recently targeted with designations by the Israeli government. AP reports. (November 8).

Rana, a programs manager at Addameer, and Milena, an international advocacy officer at Addameer, write in the LA Times that the designation of their organization by the Israeli government will not silence them, and call on civil society around the globe to stand with them in demanding that Israel rescind these designations immediately. Read Rana and Milena’s op-ed in the LA Times. (November 6).

Zena Agha, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, argues that “the effective criminalization of Palestinian institutions and the expansion of the settlements are two sides of the same coin.” She explains the critical work that the designated organizations have been involved in, and how suppressing this work serves the Israeli government’s political interests. Read her take in the New York Times. (November 5).

Yousef Munayyer, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington, argues that Israel, with its recent designation of six Palestinian NGOs, is “providing a template for authoritarian regimes seeking to silence adversaries in ways that pass muster in the West.” Read his take in Foreign Policy. (November 5).

A secret dossier leaked to +972 Magazine, the Intercept, and Local Call offers no proof to support Israel’s recent designation of six Palestinian NGOs, instead relying on unsubstantiated testimony obtained through interrogations techniques that could amount to ill-treatment or torture. Read analysis of the dossier on +972 here. (November 4).

Diala Shamas, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, explores the ways in which U.S. law has facilitated efforts to undermine Palestinian civil society, such as the abuse of “material support” laws, and calls on the U.S. government to continue engaging with the designated organizations, to cite them in human rights reports, to invite them to submit testimony to Congress, and to publish guidance for financial institutions telling them to ignore unreliable designations by the Israeli government. Read her take in Just Security. (November 4).

C&SN has joined over 300 other organizations in a letter demanding that the Biden administration condemn Israel’s designations of six Palestinian NGOs and call on Israel to rescind them. Read the letter here. (October 29).
Sanctions
The U.S. has ended Ethiopia’s special trade status, and is considering imposing new sanctions on both the Ethiopian government and the Tigrayan rebels, and the State Department has also prepared a document declaring that the government’s atrocities against the Tigrayan people amounts to genocide, though Secretary of State Blinken has yet to sign it. Connor Finnegan reports for ABC News. (November 2).
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