British groups War on Want and Palestine Solidarity Campaign among those whose staff are barred from visiting Israel
The prominent British campaign group War on Want has been listed as one of 20 foreign NGOs whose representatives are banned from visiting Israel over their support of the pro-Palestinian boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) movement.
The publication of the list, which also includes a well-known Jewish anti-occupation group and a Nobel peace prize-winning US Quaker group, had been threatened for months by Israel.
The organisations were singled out by Israel’s rightwing strategic affairs and public security minister, Gilad Erdan, for advocating boycotts of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
US projects in Palestinian territories face backlash amid calls for boycott Read more
Erdan said on Sunday that the groups “operate consistently and continuously” against Israel using a “campaign of incitement and lies”.
Human rights groups condemned the move as an assault on free speech. A number of individuals have been refused entry into Israel in recent months, including a prominent African theologian and official of the World Council of Churches.
While most of the organisations listed by Erdan are local branches of the BDS movement around the world, others include Jewish Voice for Peace, which has 13,000 members, the US group Code Pink and the American Friends Service Committee, which won the peace prize in 1947.
As well as War on Want, the list names a second British group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which Jeremy Corbyn is a patron.
Erdan said Israel had “shifted from defence to offence” with the publication of the list. “The boycott organisations need to know that the state of Israel will act against them and not allow [them] to enter its territory to harm its citizens,” he said. “No country would have allowed critics coming to harm the country to enter it.”
The interior minister, Arye Dery, whose ministry is responsible for barring those listed, said: “These people are trying to exploit the law and our hospitality to act against Israel and to defame the country. I will act against this by every means.”
The travel ban is the latest in a series of populist moves by the Israeli government, the most rightwing coalition in the country’s history. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he intends to remove 40,000 African migrants from Israel and expressed support for making it easier to hang people convicted of terrorism.
Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, criticised the publication of the list, saying it was “disconcerting but not surprising given the further erosion of democratic norms and rising anxiety about the power of BDS as a tool to demand freedom.”
She wrote on Facebook: “As someone with considerable family in Israel, this policy will be a personal hardship. But I am also heartened by this indicator of the BDS movement’s growing strength, and hope that it will bring the day closer when just as I go to visit my friends and family in Israel, so will Palestinian friends and colleagues be able to return home.”
Hassan Jabareen, of the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said the travel ban was draconian and arbitrary. “This ban is an overt violation of the constitutional rights of Israeli citizens and the rights guaranteed to Palestinian residents of the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] under international humanitarian and human rights law. This move is reminiscent of South Africa’s apartheid regime which also prepared blacklists in order to punish people and prevent the entry of those opposed to its racist policies.”
In November Israel denied entry to a US employee of Amnesty International as part of its anti-boycott offensive under the same rules. Amnesty is not on the list of 20 groups published on Sunday.
On Sunday, Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs published a list of 20 specific non-government organizations (NGOs) now forbidden to enter the country.  These organizations were associated with the  (BDS), which supports  of Israel as a state and other actions as a means of protesting Israel's treatment of Palestine.

"Forming the list is another step in our struggle against the incitement and lies of the boycott organizations, and no state would allow visitors who come to harm the state to enter it, and certainly with the goal of destroying Israel as a Jewish state," Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan told the press.

The proscribed organizations include the BDS organizations from France, Italy, Chile, and South Africa, BDS national committee, and BDS Kampagne; the , the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine, Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Palestine Committee of Norway, , , and the Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden from Europe; and , U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, National Students for Justice in Palestine, , , and the  from the United States. "Friends" is another name for the Quakers, a Christian sect with egalitarianism as a central tenet.   Officials from these organizations and any activist known to be associated may be barred from entering Israel.  Other public figures who advocate boycotts of Israel, such as the mayors of towns, may also be denied entry.  
The American Friends Service Committee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for its work helping refugees displaced by World War II; principally, noted Israeli newspaper '''', families of Jewish refugees married to non-Jews.

"For me as a Palestinian, it means a lot that they are going to ban me from going to see my family and people. It is absolutely horrible," said Fatin al-Tamimi, head of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Israeli Minister of the Interior Arye Derry issued a statement: "These people are trying to exploit the law and our hospitality to act against Israel and to defame the country. I will act against this by every means."

Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of one of the listed groups, Jewish Voice for Peace, responded on Facebook, "As someone with considerable family in Israel, this policy will be a personal hardship. But I am also heartened by this indicator of the BDS movement's growing strength, and hope that it will bring the day closer when just as I go to visit my friends and family in Israel, so will Palestinian friends and colleagues be able to return home."

Human rights groups sharply criticized the prohibition as opposing free speech.



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