The U.N. Must Do More to Protect Civil Society From the Abuses of Counterterrorism
Author : Matt Schwartz and Franziska Praxl
Date : 16 October 2024
With the horrific October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups as its justification, Israel launched a war of collective punishment on the entire population of Gaza, while also intensifying repression of Palestinian civil society and cementing Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank. In this piece for DAWN’s Democracy in Exile, Matt Schwartz and Franziska Praxl examine how the Israeli and global crack down against Palestinian rights and solidarity groups are part of a long pattern of violence and repression that has heavily drawn on a counterterrorism justification. They describe how the use and abuse of counterterrorism measures to target minorities, dissenters, and movements for justice is hardly unique to Israel, however. And that for the past two decades the United Nations has played an increasingly central role in the proliferation these measures around the globe – even in the face of ever-mounting harms to human rights and civil liberties.
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