The Israeli government expelled the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch on Monday, officials from the organization said, the first such deportation under a 2017 law targeting supporters of a boycott movement. The director, Omar Shakir, departed after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of a deportation order from last year that…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Human Rights Watch sued Israel’s Interior Ministry to prevent its local director from being deported over his past involvement in the BDS movement. The NGO filed the lawsuit in Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday in order to keep its director of Israel/Palestine, Omar Shakir, from being deported after his work permit was…
When Israeli authorities revoked the work permit of Human Rights Watch Israel/Palestine director Omar Shakir on May 7 and ordered him to leave the country within two weeks, they presumably anticipated the furious backlash that promptly ensued. After all, already last year, Israel denied Shakir a work permit, only to backtrack quickly in the face…
I feel like I am standing on a melting ice floe. For decades, I have loved Israel. I want it to thrive as a shining, rights-abiding country. And yet, increasingly, I find I can envision a day when I (or maybe my children) will not want to go there anymore. My Jewish life, which began…
When it comes to Palestinians, the American Jewish establishment is in the ignorance business. The average American synagogue has never hosted a Palestinian speaker. The average “pro-Israel” activist has never read a book by a Palestinian author. The American Jewish philanthropists who fund Birthright send thousands of young American Jews to Israel each year, on…
Israel gave a one-year work visa to a Human Rights Watch researcher on Wednesday after initially denying him a permit and accusing the organization of engaging in “Palestinian propaganda,” the group said. The decision in February to deny Omar Shakir a work permit was criticized by the United States. Shakir, a U.S. citizen, received the…
(JTA) — Israel is refusing to issue a visa to an American employee of Human Rights Watch over his group’s alleged bias against the Jewish state, the Guardian daily reported. The Israeli decision on one of the world’s most prominent nongovernmental organizations in its field emerged after Israeli authorities turned down a visa for its…
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