A Palestinian “human rights organization” with ties to Democratic megadonor George Soros has repeatedly justified or celebrated the recent Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel that killed more than 1,200 people in the Jewish state.
Al-Haq claims it helps “to ensure that international human rights standards are reflected in Palestinian law and policies,” though Israel’s government found the group in 2021 to be an “arm” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the United States designated as a terrorist group in 1997. Following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, Al-Haq officials have “been explicit in defending and supporting” violence while also accusing Israel of “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” at least 117 times on social media, NGO Monitor, a watchdog group tracking antisemitism, wrote in a new report titled “Al-Haq’s Extremist Demonization of Israel after the October 7 Pogrom” that was shared with the Washington Examiner.
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“Al-Haq, a Ramallah-based NGO, presents itself to the world as a genuine human rights organization,” NGO Monitor, which is headquartered in Jerusalem, said in the report. “And this is how it is received by ideological allies among UN officials, diplomats, and journalists.”
“However, as demonstrated by NGO Monitor, Al-Haq is a leader in the demonization campaigns and political war against Israel,” the report continued. “Under the facade of human rights and international law, the NGO promotes blatant rank antisemitism, BDS, and lawfare.”
The release of the report comes as Israel continues to conduct airstrikes and ground operations in Gaza — with hostage negotiations remaining uncertain after a brief ceasefire. Its contents underscore how foreign nonprofit groups with ties to the U.S. are boosting Hamas talking points, particularly after Oct. 7.
Al-Haq received over $2 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society between 2016 and 2020, a nonprofit group bankrolled by Soros, records show. In 2022, the Soros-backed Open Society Foundations slammed Israel’s government after it raided offices for Al-Haq and called the group “a leading human rights organization.”
“The Open Society Foundations remains fully committed to its support for Al-Haq,” OSF said in 2022. OSF did not return a request for comment Thursday.
Al-Haq, which was formed in 1979, counts its general director as Shawan Jabarin, who was convicted in 1985 for arranging training for the PFLP, according to multiple reports. In 1994, Israel submitted a statement to the United Nations asserting Jabarin, at the time, “had not discontinued his terrorist involvement and maintains his position in the leadership of the PFLP.”
Jabarin has also participated in PFLP-linked events in recent years, including in a May 2019 “memorial event” for the late PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna, according to Palestinian media.
In the new report, the watchdog group cited how Al-Haq co-signed a statement on Oct. 8 declaring that, one day earlier, “Palestinian armed groups engaged in an operation in response to escalating Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.” Al-Haq, which the watchdog said in the report has been funded by the European Union, Denmark, Norway, Germany, and Sweden, has on various occasions since Oct. 7 referred to terrorism as favorable “resistance.”
On Oct. 11, Al-Haq head of training Ziad Hmaidan openly urged Palestinians to attack Israel, writing on Facebook, “Anyone who watches the carnage; And the silence prevails; Partner in it!!”
But Hmaidan’s comments should come as no surprise, according to NGO Monitor. The Al-Haq official openly touted in December 2022 his friendship with the late Omar Mana, whom the PFLP has dubbed a terrorist “fighter” who died “while participating in armed clashes with occupation army forces,” according to statements archived by the watchdog.
And on Oct. 10, Hmaidan wrote on Facebook, “It is written in the Hadith: ‘You must wage jihad. The best jihad is preparing for war, and it is best to prepare for war in Ashkelon.'” Hmaidan, on Oct. 9, shared a picture on Facebook of deceased al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist Ibrahim Nabulsi aiming a gun, with the caption, “A message of intense love. The picture of one of the men of the ‘flood’ during a confrontation in one of the [Israeli] bases that was stormed. This picture carries a thousand signs and meanings. Observe the picture that the sniper of the flood stuck on his rifle,” NGO Monitor found.
Meanwhile, on Oct. 12, Al-Haq legal researcher Aseel Al-Bajed posted on X, “We don’t need to speak of our right to resist, for it is not a right, but a way of being & survival for Palestinians. We don’t demand our right to narrate. Our ability to narrate was never out of our hands & resistance doesn’t need the pre- approval of static int’l law codes.”
Another Al-Haq legal researcher, Ahmed Abofoul, posted on X in October, “It is outrageous to call on Palestinian resistance (permitted by international law) to CEASE its attacks while asking the occupying power.”
Since Oct. 7, roughly 54% of Al-Haq posts by officials on X mention “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” in connection to Israel defending itself against Hamas, NGO Monitor found. Al-Haq is also boosting Hamas-led propaganda during the war, with its officials promoting the falsehood that Israel “bombed” the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, social media posts show.
“This is pathetic,” Abofoul said on Nov. 15 on X. “Israel scandalously lied about the Hamas command centre in Al-Shifa Hospital. Israel is Pathologically lying, those who want to pretend or claim to seriously believe its nonsense are not only complicit in its crimes but also responsible for them.”
Abofoul has referred to the PFLP as a “left-wing secular socialist organization founded in 1967 by Palestinian Christian politician, George Habash” while slamming Israel’s government for calling it “a radical Islamist group.” The PFLP “combines Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology, viewing the destruction of Israel as integral to the struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East and ultimately establish a Communist Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In the U.S., Al-Haq has other ties that highlight its influence.
The Israeli-designated terrorist group has been promoted on websites as a potential employment option by at least three American law schools, including the University of California, Los Angeles, Georgetown University, and Northeastern University, the Daily Caller reported.
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Moreover, Al-Haq participates in pro-Palestinian activism with the Samidoun Prisoner Solidarity Network, an Israeli-designated terrorist group housed under an “anti-capitalist” charity in Arizona called Alliance for Global Justice, the Washington Examiner reported.
Al-Haq did not return a request for comment.
