On Oct. 20, at 11am – 12:30pm EDT / 5pm – 6:30pm CET, the Charity & Security Network is hosting a panel discussion on Tracking the Suppression of Palestinian Civil Society and Human Rights Advocacy. Register for the event here!
Description:
The panel will examine a range of strategies that the Israeli government and allied organizations have employed to suppress Palestinian civil society and human rights advocacy, and look at some of the broad efforts and opportunities for pushing back against these strategies. The discussion start with a brief overview of C&SN’s report, The Alarming Rise of Lawfare to Suppress Civil Society: The Case of Palestine and Israel, published last year, which covers a long list of legal and disinformation campaigns targeting civil society in Palestine. It will then turn to the past year, including Israel’s designation of the Palestinian Six, and escalating efforts to label criticism of Israel and support for the BDS movement as anti-semitic. Finally, it will conclude with a discussion of where these trends are heading, and opportunities and strategies for pushing back against them.
About Our Panelists:
Paul Carroll, Director of the Charity & Security Network
Paul Carroll is the Director of the Charity & Security Network, a resource and advocacy center working to promote and protect the ability of nonprofit organizations to carry out peacebuilding, humanitarian, and human rights missions and to advance national security frameworks that support rather than impede this work. Earlier in his career, Paul spent seventeen years at the Ploughshares Fund, a public foundation that works to eliminate the risks from nuclear weapons. More recently, Paul served as the Director of Nuclear Security Partnerships at N Square, a funders collaborative that seeks to foster innovation and collaboration in the nuclear security sector.
Sahar Francis, General Director of Addameer
Since 2006, Sahar Francis has been the Director of Ramallah-based Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian NGO providing legal and advocacy support to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli and Palestinian prisons. An attorney by training, she joined the association in 1998, first as a human rights lawyer, then as head of the Legal Unit. With over twenty years of human rights experience, including human rights counseling and representation, Ms. Francis also was on the Board of Defence for Children International – Palestine Section for 4 years.
Rabea Eghbariah, Human Rights Lawyer with the Civil and Political Rights Unit at Adalah
Rabea Eghbariah is an attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School. He worked as an appellate public defender before joining Adalah, where he continues to work over summers. Rabea argued major civil and political rights cases and published on various subjects relating to Palestinians and Israeli law. His writings appeared in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, the Law and Political Economy Project, and the Journal of Palestine Studies, among others. Rabea previously served as an executive article editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal and currently serves as an editorial member of Jadaliyya’s Palestine page.
Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace
Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP). She is a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on Israel/Palestine and the role of the U.S. Congress. Prior to joining FMEP, Lara was the Director of Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now, and before that she was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, serving in Jerusalem, Washington, Tunis and Beirut.