Israel envoy to brief US over ban on Palestinian groups

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel is sending an envoy to Washington amid a deepening rift with the Biden administration over six outlawed Palestinian rights groups, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.

Israel last week designated the prominent Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations, sparking international criticism and repeated assertions by Israel's top strategic partner, the United States, that there had been no advance warning of the move.

Israel's decision marked what critics say was a major escalation of its decades-long crackdown on political activism in the occupied territories. The U.S. State Department has said it would seek more information on the decision.

Joshua Zarka, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, told Israeli Army Radio the envoy would “give them all the details and to present them all the intelligence” during his visit in the coming days.

Zarka said he personally updated U.S. officials on Israel's intention to outlaw the groups last week, and said he believed Washington wanted a more thorough explanation of the decision.

The rights groups decision is emerging as a test of the relationship between the Biden administration and Israel's new government, which was formed in June by eight politically disparate parties. The coalition ended the 12-year rule of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu's hardline government enjoyed broad support from the Trump administration, which moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, largely allowed settlement building to continue unfettered, cut funding to the Palestinians and presented a vision for the Mideast that sided with Israel’s positions.

The Biden administration has mostly restored traditional foreign policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. But with the U.S. focused on other pressing domestic and foreign issues, the conflict was expected to take a backseat.

The fractious coalition government has also sought to minimize the Palestinian issue, agreeing not to make major moves that might threaten its stability. But in recent weeks, it has ramped up focus on the conflict, offering a number of goodwill gestures to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and also pushing forward on building thousands of new homes for Jewish settlers.

Most dramatic was the decision on the civil society groups, which has rattled the coalition and returned focus to the conflict and Israel's decades-long occupation of territories the Palestinians seek for a future state.

Israel has for years alleged the groups' links to a Palestinian militant group but even under Netanyahu's hardline government, stopped short of labeling them terrorist organizations.

The announcement has outraged the activist community in Israel, which in recent years has also faced pushback from hardline Israeli governments. In a joint statement Monday, more than 20 Israeli human rights groups, including some of the country's leading, most established organizations, condemned the step, calling it “a draconian measure that criminalizes critical human rights work.”

On Tuesday, the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also criticized the designation, saying it was “an attack on human rights defenders” and calling for it to be rescinded.

The declaration against the Palestinian rights groups appeared to pave the way for Israel to raid their offices, seize assets, arrest staff and criminalize any public expressions of support for the groups. Most of the targeted organizations document alleged human rights violations by Israel as well as the Palestinian Authority, both of which routinely detain Palestinian activists.

The designated groups are Al-Haq, a human rights group founded in 1979, as well as the Addameer rights group, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.