
On October 15, 2024, the United States and Canada jointly announced terrorist sanctions against the Vancouver-based NGO Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, and declared Khaled Barakat, a Canadian citizen, a “terrorist” due to his involvement with the organization. Canada also listed the organization as a “terrorist entity.” The two governments claim that Samidoun is a “sham charity” serving as “an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),” which the United States designated as a terrorist organization in 1997. Samidoun has asserted that it fundraises solely to sustain its own advocacy campaigns, not for any other organizations, and that it does not have “any material or organizational ties to entities on the terrorism lists of the United States, Canada, or the European Union.”
Samidoun, meaning “steadfast” in Arabic, is an international grassroots organization comprised of a network of activists across the United States, Canada, several European countries, Palestine, and Lebanon. It was founded following a 2011 hunger strike protesting inhumane conditions in Israeli prisons to provide resources and organize advocacy for justice for and liberation of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israel. (3,428 Palestinians are currently in administrative detention in Israel.) Since October 2023, Samidoun has faced increased scrutiny for organizing educational events and demonstrations against the war on Gaza across several countries.
The legal targeting of Samidoun began in 2021, when Israel’s then-minister of defense Benny Gantz designated it as a “terrorist organization” alongside six other NGOsefending Palestinian rights. Israel said that the move, based on secret evidence, was due to the organizations’ alleged ties to the PFLP. Following this, the pro-Israel lawfare group Zachor Legal Institute launched a US campaign against Samidoun and the US-based human rights group Alliance for Global Justice, which acts as a “fiscal sponsor” for organizations that do not have US nonprofit status and that Zachor claims raised funds for Samidoun. Zachor filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service calling for the closure of the Alliance’s online fundraising platform; in February 2023 the Alliance announced it could no longer receive credit card donations, a move that it said blocked 140 NGOs from receiving its fiscal sponsorship. In October 2023, Germany announced it was banning Samidoun, based on what Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser alleged was the network’s dissemination of “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda.”
The crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism fits within the broader US policy of unconditional support for Israel.
The October 2024 American-Canadian terrorism sanctions against Samidoun came in the context of increasing public pressure against both governments’ complacency toward Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Adding to pre-existing legislation on counterterrorism, a new body of laws and regulations has emerged in the United States and Canada to suppress any pro-Palestinian solidarity and activism. As such, the sanctioning of Samidoun is in line with policies of quelling student protests and criminalizing the economic boycott of Israel.
The crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism fits within the broader US policy of unconditional support of Israel and disregard for Palestinian rights. Despite unprecedented domestic pressure to hold Israel accountable for its violations of humanitarian and international law in Gaza and beyond, the United States reportedly provided at least $22.76 billion in military aid to Israel in the 12 months following October 7, 2023. The Biden administration has also just notified Congress of its plan to sell Israel another $8 billion worth of missiles and munitions. At the same time, the Biden administration halted funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main humanitarian agency supporting Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, the occupied West Bank, and Jordan, despite a UN-backed report announcing that famine was imminent in the north of the Strip. Without major US intervention, Israel has used starvation and manipulation of aid as a weapon of war, according to aid groups blocking 83 percent of necessary food aid from entering Gaza.
Systemically Criminalizing Pro-Palestinian Solidarity
Israel’s supporters have long used US counterterrorism laws to attack pro-Palestinian activists and organizations. Most commonly, they have used the Material Support to Terrorism statute, the law central to the sanctioning of Samidoun, to challenge organizations supporting Palestine, as this support is vaguely interpreted to include advocacy and humanitarian organizations that operate “in coordination” with designated terrorist groups. The ambiguity of the statute has given Zionist organizations the opportunity to falsely link pro-Palestinian organizations and those listed as terrorist entities. For example, citing the statute, in 2019 the Jewish National Fund filed a lawsuit against the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights for its advocacy work including its support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and in 2023 the Anti-Defamation League requested a criminal investigation of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) by attempting to connect the student group to Hamas. Now, in the context of the unfolding genocide in Gaza, the vagueness and malleability of counterterrorism laws facilitate attempts to suppress peaceful pro-Palestinian dissent in the United States.
On November 21, 2024, the House of Representatives passed H.R.9495, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, which threatens to make it easier for the US government to “terminate the tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations.” Like other anti-Palestinian legislation, the bill enjoyed bipartisan support and was introduced by an AIPAC-endorsed lawmaker, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY). The proposed legislation would facilitate the executive branch’s dissolution of organizations working for Palestinian rights by implying ties to “terrorist”-designated groups in Palestine, similar to the moves taken against Samidoun.
In the same week, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) introduced H.R.10257, the Protect Economic Freedom Act, which would make any US institution of higher education that participates in a “commercial boycott of Israel” ineligible to receive federal student aid. It is one of several federal anti-boycott bills, emulating laws already passed by several US states. Illinois’s SB 1761, passed in 2015, marked the first state legislation calling to divest public pension funds from entities engaging in the BDS campaign, and 37 other states have followed suit.
In addition to criminalizing the economic boycott of Israel, there have been legal efforts to reframe anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel. House Resolution 849, introduced in November 2023, condemns the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as “an expression of support for genocide, murder, and ethnic cleansing.” The bill carries the risk of serious restrictions on free speech and the ability to protest. In 2019, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, which adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The definition classifies some criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, including claims that Israel is a racist state, which IHRA claims involves “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” The ambiguity of this definition facilitates its use against pro-Palestinian activists, posing a genuine threat on the ability to denounce Israel’s crimes.
Anti-Palestinian Suppression on University Campuses
Before the sanctioning of Samidoun, university campuses across the United States served as a microcosm for the unfolding suppression of pro-Palestinian activism. Students demanding an end to their institutions’ complicity in the Israeli occupation have been met with crackdowns ranging from physical attacks by law enforcement to intricate institutional regulations aimed at stifling protests. Despite being enforced on an institutional level, these repressive measures operate within a much larger framework of criminalizing pro-Palestinian dissent. The repression is centered on the idea that pro-Palestinian activism poses a threat to public safety, is linked to terrorism, or is a form of anti-Semitism.
Pro-Palestinian student groups have come under immense institutional pressure in the past year.
Taking after such anti-Semitism redefinition laws, in 2024 New York University declared Zionists as a protected class shielded from “adverse treatment” under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In this unprecedented decision, the university claims that “Zionist” can be used as a code word for “Jewish,” and that Zionists have the same protections as an ethnic or racial group. This is the first case in which Title VI has been applied to a political ideology, which sets a dangerous precedent for its use to empower other nationalist movements. More utilized policy changes undertaken by universities across the nation have included prohibiting encampments, placing strict restrictions on student events and demonstrations, banning all face coverings, and requiring students to carry identification at all times. The University of Maryland instituted an unlawful ban on all “expressive events” on the October 7 anniversary in order to cancel a vigil planned by SJP, although the move was successfully challenged in federal court.
Pro-Palestinian student groups, most notably SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), have come under immense institutional pressure in the past year. In November 2023, Columbia University banned its SJP and JVP chapters due to their holding of “unauthorized events.” As a result, dozens of student groups have joined the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition in order to continue organizing. Several universities have similarly banned their SJP chapters or otherwise restricted pro-Palestinian events, including The George Washington University, which suspended SJP for holding a peaceful demonstration outside of the campus library. In October 2023, Florida State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues announced his support for Governor Ron DeSantis’s banning of all state chapters affiliated with National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), claiming that the group is linked to terrorism and was “part of the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” The decision was ultimately left unenforced as the system’s two SJP chapters at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida are fully autonomous from NSJP. However, Rodrigues’s and DeSantis’s public denunciation of the student group demonstrates the weaponization of the term “terrorist” to endanger and defame students involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. In November 2024, police raided the family home of two students involved in the leadership of George Mason University’s SJP chapter, reportedly without showing the family a search warrant, over an alleged graffiti investigation. The university’s SJP chapter was suspended shortly thereafter and the students were banned from campus for four years. The action preceded a similar raid conducted against Samidoun activist Charlotte Kates’s home in Canada a month after the organization’s terrorist designation, following her comments expressing support for Palestinian armed resistance.
The Future of Pro-Palestinian Advocacy: Risks and Recommendations
The sanctioning of Samidoun and other pro-Palestinian activist groups sets a dangerous precedent for the suppression and surveillance of all advocacy efforts and threatens to erode standards of free speech. As demonstrated by the attacks on Samidoun and SJP, the malleability of the “terrorist” label allows states and private institutions to freely use it to stifle dissent without due process. Indeed, Israel’s recent outlawing of UNRWA, based on “terrorist” claims refuted by UN investigations, puts millions of Palestinian lives at risk. The United States should institute a fair and transparent multi-step process to designate entities as terrorism-related, along with more transparency and greater ability for those targeted to challenge such decisions.
Samidoun’s criminalization is only one example of the broader criminalization of pro-Palestinian advocacy in the West. The dangerous trend spans civil society, fueling the censorship of students and criminalizing non-violent acts of economic boycott. More than ever, it is imperative to address the bias at the root of terror-related labels. Such attempts at censorship have reached dangerous levels reaching beyond the scope of Palestinian rights: they pose a grave threat to free expression rights in the United States and beyond.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Shutterstock/L Paul Mann