Israel’s recent criminalization of six Palestinian human rights organizations has sparked global outcry. But this tactic fits into a global trend of lawfare led by right-wing and conservative governments, including in the US and Europe, against activists and grassroots organizers. it must be actively resisted politically and legally.

On the anniversary of the First Intifada, Al-Shabaka asks: how can Palestinians and their allies move away from defensively responding to criminalization accusations towards a proactive strategy which challenges the Israeli regime’s lawfare tactics? How can this approach combine political and legal strategies? How can it engage intersectionally with other progressive movements?

Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights defender and co-founder of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights. He is a co-recipient of the 2017 Gandhi Peace Award. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, NY, and is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy (ethics) at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of, BDS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (Haymarket: 2011). His commentaries and views have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, AP, Reuters, AFP, the Nation, and on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, Bloomberg TV, among others.

Dima Khalidi is the founder and director of Palestine Legal. She oversees Palestine Legal’s array of legal and advocacy work to protect people speaking out for Palestinian freedom from attacks on their civil and constitutional rights. Prior to founding Palestine Legal in 2012, Dima worked as co-counsel and as an intern with the Center for Constitutional Rights on numerous cases that sought to hold Israeli officials and corporations accountable for Israeli violations of international law. Dima has a JD from DePaul University College of Law, an MA in International and Comparative Legal Studies from the University of London – SOAS, and a BA in History and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan.

Nadim Bawalsa is Al-Shabaka’s Commissioning Editor. He is a historian of modern Palestine and has written on the emergence of Palestinian diaspora communities across Latin America in the early twentieth century.

About the Policy Lab Program: Al-Shabaka's Policy Lab Program is an online live-stream space where audiences can engage directly with expert analysts from our nearly 200-member network as they craft policies and strategies related to Palestine. The labs are free and open for public participation, inviting viewers to join in on policy discussions.

Note: This discussion will take place in English. Our policy labs are supported through the generosity of donors. They are free to attend, though we accept contributions on a sliding scale upon registration to help sustain the program.

The opinions of individual members of Al-Shabaka’s policy network do not necessarily reflect the views of the organization as a whole.

Lawfare and Palestine: Strategies for Resisting Criminalization