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In February 2021, Defense for Children International–Palestine (DCIP) reported that Israeli interrogators had raped a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in detention. Rather than investigate the allegation, Israeli forces raided DCIP’s offices and later designated it—along with five other Palestinian human rights groups—as a “terrorist organization.” While such abuses and crackdowns are not new, this moment marked a decisive escalation: the shift from harassment of Palestinian civil society to its outright criminalization with the full support and participation of the US. In 2025, the Trump administration designated six Palestinian organizations under counterterrorism frameworks before advancing even further, sanctioning leading human rights groups for engaging with the International Criminal Court. These measures move beyond targeting individual actors to undermining the very infrastructure of international accountability. This policy brief argues that the campaign by the US and the Israeli regime against Palestinian civil society and international law carries global consequences, threatening mechanisms designed to hold state violence in check. It concludes with recommendations for how Palestinian organizations and their allies can adapt, defend themselves, and pursue justice in an increasingly hostile environment.
As the US and Israel escalate their assault on Iran, the Israeli regime has been constructing a war economy to sustain prolonged military campaigns while evading accountability. In September 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israelis to transform the country into a “Super Sparta” of the Middle East—more militarized, economically self-reliant, and capable of sustaining protracted conflict despite mounting external pressure. This policy brief argues that this rhetoric reflects an emerging doctrine: a political-economic project structured around permanent national mobilization, preventative warfare, and accelerated defense-industrial expansion. Yet the Israeli regime’s shift toward self-reliance is not producing full autarky. Instead, the war economy is consolidating into a hybrid model that combines domestic substitution in critical defense sectors with deeper integration into transnational supply networks, thereby dispersing sanctions risk. This configuration blunts the impact of conventional accountability tools, such as fragmented or weakly enforced arms embargoes. As a result, effective international responses must move beyond traditional sanctions frameworks and instead target the material infrastructure and dependency nodes that sustain Israel’s war economy.
Noura Erakat and Jake Romm joined us for a policy lab episode on how Gaza helped shatter the old status quo and what that break reveals about the world being built in its wake.
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Letter from Gilboa Jail
May 30, 2010
After being allowed to get a pen and a piece of paper, which has been banned for the last three weeks, and after being allowed to get out of my total isolation, it’s a moment to write a short letter from my jail (Gilboa).
It’s a great opportunity for me to express my sincere thanks, greetings and appreciation to all the colleagues, friends and solidarity groups, organizations and persons, internationals, Arabs in the region, Israelis and Palestinians in the homeland and in the Diaspora. A very special salute to all those who visited my family and supported them after the trauma they passed on May 6 and since that late night.
It’s a moment to express my great appreciation to all the international & local human rights organizations which raised their voices loudly.
Also to Ittijah partner organizations all around the world which supported my/our struggle for justice and for a fair trial in order to get to prove my innocence.
Physically I am still suffering very much but morally it’s a great feeling to know what solidarity means.
My story is that the Israeli intelligence, “The Shabak,” assumed something without knowing and without any evidence. I was requested and forced to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn’t do, ever. In case of any logical problem for them to complete the puzzle, they have the legal tools to fill it in by so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.
According to the media in Israel, I’m already guilty, a terrorist and a supporter terror. The rule of the game here is that I’m guilty whether or not I prove that I’m not. This collective assumption is prior to court and trial procedures.
The abuse of evidence & fair legal procedures are crucial. The Shabak can tell lies to the court by so called “secret evidence,” “banning meetings with lawyers,” “banning the publication of information,” “imposing total isolation” and other very sophisticated ways of torture, which leave no direct evidence although it is very harsh. (See Adalah: www.adalah.org). I believe that my case is an opportunity to examine these tools as tools for the criminalization of human rights defenders.
I would like to highlight again your support & solidarity. I look to it as a very essential and crucial message of support for the victim and to stop the oppressor. Thank you. Let us continue with the way for justice, human dignity, human rights and ensuring an opportunity for a fair trial.
Sincerely,
Ameer Makhoul
Ameer Makhoul
Ameer Makhoul has served for many years as General Director of ittijah – Union of Arab Community Based Associations, the largest coalition of civil society organizations among the Palestinian citizens of Israel. He has also chaired the National committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms, and served as coordinator of the Coordinating Committee of Palestinian Civil Society in the Homeland and Diaspora. He writes frequently on human rights issues and his political analysis is widely circulated.
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