PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday night met in a show of solidarity with representatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) affiliated human rights and civil society groups who have recently been designated as terrorist organizations by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz (Israel Declares 6 NGOs as Terror Groups — US, EU, UN Not Happy).
Gantz, who is currently mad at the State Dept. for claiming they can’t recall receiving his warning about banning these six groups, as well as at leftist Ministers Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) and Merav Michaeli (Labor) who protested his unilateral decision and asked not to be surprised by such controversial decisions in the future (State Dept: Gantz Never Warned Us He Was Planning to Outlaw 6 Terrorist NGOs), may proceed with a tirade against Abbas, with who he, Gantz, has met a month ago without telling Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Abbas received at his office in Ramallah representatives of Al-Haq, Addameer, Defense of Children – Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, and Bisan Center for Research and Development.
Abbas said that Israel has no right to interfere with the work of these organizations that operate in accordance with Palestinian Authority law.
In turn, the members of the six terrorist delegations stressed that their organizations would continue to do their work in “exposing the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people.” They said they would stay in touch and coordinate with Abbas’s office, “to confront this Israeli decision that violates all laws.”
Minister Gantz announced that following a joint activity of the Shin Bet and Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF), which began in early 2021 and was approved by the legal authorities, six organizations belonging to the PFLP were designated as terror organizations because they constitute a network of organizations active undercover on the international front on behalf of the Popular Front, to support its activity and further its goals.
According to Gantz, “Those organizations were active under the cover of ‘Civic Society Organizations,’ but in practice belong and constitute an arm of the Organization’s leadership, the main activity of which is the liberation of Palestine and destruction of Israel.”