In a welcome development last Friday, six new terrorist organizations were born. Well, not exactly new, and they weren't exactly born, but now they have been designated as such, now they have been given a name. After years of warning signs and alarm bells, the Defense and Justice ministries decided to label these Palestinian organizations, which had posed as human rights groups, as terrorist organizations with ties to the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The new designation did not come about spontaneously. This significant step was taken after more than a year-long process of investigation and intelligence gathering.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
It's safe to assume the majority of the Israeli public doesn't know what this story is about, but in the international arena and the Israeli left, this is an earthquake. These are six prominent Palestinian organizations, and among the fields that they have defined as their mission are children's rights, agriculture, women's rights, prisoners' rights and more. What could be nobler? The Israeli left, meanwhile, has been busy the past few days campaigning on behalf of these organizations and their activists. A minority element of the left is moderately calling for transparency from these organizations and for them to share the information forming the pretext for the decision to categorize them as terrorist groups. This material is currently designated as classified but it is indeed a legitimate request, and even if it can't be revealed now, it should be published in the future as proof. These types of things should receive as much exposure as possible: It's healthy from a public and administrative perspective.
What isn't legitimate is that majority of left-wing groups in Israel have blindly rallied to the defense of these newly designated terrorist organizations. Last week, they issued a public letter of support for these six groups. Under the headline, "Draconian measure against human rights," the most prominent leftist groups in Israel jointly said that "criminalizing such work is an act of cowardice, characteristic of repressive authoritarian regimes." B'Tselem Chairman David Zonsheine published a photograph of himself with Al-Haq Director Shawan Jabarin, and said he was proudly standing alongside him. The same Jabarin, the High Court of Justice has ruled on numerous occasions, is "among the senior activists of the PHLP terrorist organization." None of this prevented Zonsheine from standing in solidarity with a terrorist.
"We are fast approaching the day where Israel prohibits the Palestinians any form of opposition to the occupation through civil and non-violent means," said New Israel Fund Director Mickey Gitzin, pretending not to know any better. And he wasn't the only one to voice this strange claim. It is strange, first of all, because violence is nothing new to the Palestinians, and that is putting it gently. Secondly, these are not civilian organizations. They are organizations with civilian cover who exploit human rights to fight Israel with violence. In a gross misrepresentation, these very same leftist activists accuse Israel of politically persecuting these organizations, some of whose senior officials were involved in the murder of Israeli teenager Rina Shnerb. The public information about the involvement of these organizations in her murder never gave these leftist activists pause before collaborating with them. The Defense Ministry issued an official decree? Don't make them laugh.
The Israeli public needs to stand behind Defense Minister Benny Gantz for this important decree, and also must reject those leftist activists who adorn themselves in the notion of human rights but in actuality now stand in solidarity, officially, with terrorists.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
