Norway rejects Israel’s stamp of terrorism on Palestinian organizations
Norway rejects Israel’s terrorist allegations against six Palestinian organizations and maintains that no evidence has been presented to substantiate them.
Israel accuses the six organizations, among those receiving support from the Norwegian authorities, of being controlled by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The PFLP is a small, secular left-wing movement that has both a political party and an armed wing that has carried out attacks on Israelis. Among other things, they were behind a number of hijackings in the 1970s and are listed as a terrorist organization by Israel and several western countries.
The terrorist listing of the six Palestinian civilian organizations, among them the human rights organizations Al-Haq and Addameer, provoked strong protests internationally when it became known in October last year.
A number of countries that for years have supported the organizations, among them Norway, called for evidence of the accusations, something Israel claims to have presented. It now rejects Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt (Labor).
Not sufficient
– In the dialogue with the Israeli authorities, Norway has been clear that the decision to list the six voluntary organizations had to be substantiated with sufficient documentation. From the Norwegian side, this was also raised during my visit to Israel in March, she tells NTB.
– In our view, the material we have received from Israel is not sufficient to justify the terrorist listing of the six organizations, she states.
Does not reassess support
Norway thus joins nine European countries which in a joint statement earlier this week distanced themselves from the terrorist accusations against the Palestinian organizations.
“Like Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, we believe that it does not currently have sufficient information to indicate that we need to reconsider our cooperation with the affected Palestinian civil society organizations,” said Huitfeldt.
– Should we receive new information, we will make a new assessment on the basis, she adds.
Silence critics
Norwegian People’s Aid has collaborated with several of the terrorist-listed organizations and believes Israel’s attempts to gag and ban themselves into them.
– The attack illustrates a trend we have seen over several years where Israel uses all means to silence critics and map violations of Palestinian human rights, said Secretary General Henriette Killi Westhrin to NTB when the blacklist became known.
This is an opinion shared by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
– For decades, the Israeli authorities have systematically tried to gag human rights monitoring and punish those who criticize their oppression of Palestinians, it is in a joint statement from the two human rights organizations.