International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL)

Activities

• The IADL is an international umbrella organization whose members “have protested racism, colonialism, and economic and political injustice wherever they interfere with legal and human rights, often at the cost of these jurists personal safety and economic well being.”
• The IADL has been recognized as a communist front for the Soviet Union by the CIA, and was described in a 1978 CIA study as “one of the most useful communist front organizations at the service of the Soviet Communist Party.” According to Professor Alan Dershowitz, the IADL “is anti-democratic to its core and supportive of terrorism and repression.”
• In 1982, the IADL established the “Permanent Commission of Lawyers on Palestine and Peace in the Middle East under the coordination of the Association of Palestinian Lawyers.” Raji Sourani, who is also the founder and director of the PCHR, served as president. Sourani was “prohibited from leaving Palestine (sic) from 1977 to 1990.” In an interview, Sourani admitted that he served “a three-year sentence [1979-1982] imposed by an Israeli court which convicted him of membership in the illegal Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine…”

Political Adovcacy

• In October 2021, IADL “expresse[d] outrage” at the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to IADL, “All of these organizations have long histories of defending and promoting human rights and are recognized throughout the world as leaders in their fields. The designations are a blatant attempt to criminalize Palestinian civil society overall.”
• In October 2020, IADL called on France to release Georges Ibrahim Abdallah from prison. Abdallah was convicted and sentenced by a French court to life in prison for “complicity in the assassinations” of Charles R. Ray in 1982, a US military attaché serving in Paris, and Yacov Bar-Simantov, a second counsellor at the Israeli embassy in Paris.
• In March 2020, IADL submitted an amicus brief to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in support of ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s decision to investigate Israel for alleged war crimes.
• In November 2019, IADL called for the release of Khalida Jarrar and Samer Arbid from prison.
  • Jarrar is a senior official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP) terrorist organization, who was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison following “her own confession, of the offense of holding office in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from 2016 until her arrest in 2019.”
  • Samer Arbid, Union of Agricultural Works Committee’s accountant from 2016 until his arrest in 2019, was indicted on 21 counts in Israeli military court. Arbid is on trial for commanding a PFLP terror cell that carried out a bombing, murdering an Israeli civilian, and injuring her father and brother. According to the indictment against him (on file), Arbid prepared and detonated the explosive device. On August 30, 2020, the PFLP referred to Arbid as a “prisoner and commander,” and “one of the heroes of the Bubeen operation” — referring to the August 2019 bombing.
• In March 2017, IADL lauded the UN ESCWA report on the “Question of Apartheid,” stating that the report provides “evidence [that] establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid.” IADL called for the UN Human Rights Council to “make more authoritative the report’s finding that Israel maintains a racist regime of apartheid in its exercise of control over the Palestinian people,” as well as “support boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] activities.”
• In 2014, signed a letter, along with representatives from National Lawyers Guild, Center for Constitutional Rights, American Association of Jurists, and the Arab Lawyers Union, urging the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda to initiate “an investigation into crimes committed and ongoing during and immediately before” the 2014 Gaza War. The letter claims that, “By transferring financial assistance, weapons and other military aid to Israel, members of U.S. Congress, President Barak Obama, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have aided and abetted the commission of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity by Israeli officials and commanders in Gaza.” The letter further accuses “Israeli political figures” of “ongoing incitement to genocide.”
• Submitted a written statement to the UN Human Rights Council in July 2014 condemning Israeli actions during the 2014 Gaza War. The statement denies Israel’s right to protect its civilians from rocket attacks from Gaza, claiming that “Israel cannot claims to act in ‘self-defense’ because, as also recognized ten years ago by the International Court of Justice…the Palestinians constitute a people under Israeli occupation and are therefore not a ‘foreign’ threat” (sic).
• During the 2012 Gaza War, the IADL condemned “illegal Israeli aggression in the strongest possible terms.” It published a statement released by PCHR and demanded “the urgent convening of a Special Session of the Human Rights Council.”
• In 2012, IADL held “its bureau meeting in Gaza, occupied Palestine” where it met with politicized NGOs and networks, including the Palestinian Bar Association and the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO).
  • Following this trip, released a statement accusing Israel of “war crimes and crimes against humanity,” carrying out “targeted killings of civilians,” and “illegal collective punishment” that is a “precursor to genocide.”

BDS Activities

• Supports BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel, and calls on states “to immediately put an end to any commercial transaction regarding weapons and military technology to and from Israel.” Calls upon its member organization “to engage in promoting an economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel.”
• In July 2021, IADL was a signatory on a call to the UN High Commissioner to “carry out, in a timely manner, the 2021 annual update of the UN database.” This discriminatory UN database of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line is aimed at bolstering BDS campaigns against Israel.
• In May 2021, “in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle against the settler colonial state of Israel,” IADL published a statement calling on the “United States and European Union end their financial, military and political support of Israel and holding political leaders accountable for their defense of Israeli crimes.”
• In July 2020, IADL sent letters to all the embassies of the United Nations member states in New York alleging that Israel is “already responsible for the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people.” IADL called for states to take “countermeasures” including “refusing to deal in arms with the Israeli state…refusing to purchase arms that have been tested through ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people…[and] cancel or end trade agreements that are nominally conditioned on human rights principles.”
• In October 2019, IADL called to “Intensify our work to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign as an international popular mechanism of accountability for the Israeli occupation and to achieve and implement Palestinian rights to self-determination, liberation, equality and return as affirmed by multiple United Nations resolutions.”