Middle East Monitor / November 18, 2021
Palestinian NGOs yesterday called for boycotting American envoy to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield over her decision not to meet with representatives of the six Palestinian NGOs banned by Israel, a statement said.
This came as Al-Quds al-Arabi reported an American official saying: “Thomas-Greenfield will not meet any of the representatives of the Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations which Israel had recently designated as ’terrorist’ organizations.”
In their statement, the NGOs said: “The Israeli attack on the six Palestinian civil society organizations is an attack on Palestinian civil society as a whole. The US Ambassador’s unwillingness to meet with the representatives of the six NGOs reinforces Israel’s attack which aims to undermine and delegitimize the human rights work of Palestinian civil society.”
Thomas-Greenfield, they added, aimed to “explore ways of strengthening normalization agreements such as the ‘Abraham Accords.'”
It added: “Our organizations stress that economic benefit and ‘peace in the region’ are merely a fig leaf.
‘Peace’ which does not include the realization of the rights of all Palestinians will be one without justice, and so will be no peace at all.
They called on other NGOs not to meet with the US envoy “to demonstrate their clear and principled refusal to reject the normalization of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
“We further call on diplomatic missions, parliamentary representatives and international organizations to reject and condemn the unlawful designation of the six Palestinian NGOs, to pressure the US to condemn Israel’s designation and call for its rescission.”
Shawan Jabarin, the General Director of Al-Haq, one of the six organizations banned by Israel, said: “It is now time, for the international community and the Palestinian people to collectively rise up and resist this egregious regional normalization, to ensure the realization of our people to self-determination and permanent sovereignty, and to prevent Israeli and regional measures towards the erasure of our people, culture, lands and home.”
