On Sunday, Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry published a full list of organizations whose members will be denied entry into the country for supporting a boycott against the Israeli state.
Dubbed the "BDS Blacklist," - in reference to organizations that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel - the list bars activists from 20 organizations from entering the country, according to Haaretz.
One such organization included in the list is the American Friends Service Committee, an organization honored with a Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for its assistance in aid for victims of Nazis.
"We have shifted from defense to offense," Gilad Erdan, Strategic Affairs Minister, said.
"The boycott organizations 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 added.
"No country would have allowed critics coming to harm the country to entry it," he added.
The ministry plans to begin enforcing the blacklist in March, the Times of Israel reports.
Talking to The Independent, Gary Spedding, a British cross-party consultant on Israel and the Palestinian Territories, explained that the list is being used as an excuse to justify the banning of human rights observers from the country.
"This isn’t really about targeting BDS activists. It's about providing an easier legal pathway to justify refusing entry to a wide range of activists and human rights observers – many who may not even support the BDS campaign but are simply supportive of Palestinian liberty and equality," he said.
Here is the full list of blacklisted organizations, as published by Haaretz:
European organizations:
- The France Association Palestine Solidarity
- BDS France
- BDS Italy
- The European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine
- Friends of Al-Aqsa
- Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- The Palestine Committee of Norway
- Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- War on Want
- BDS Kampagne
American organizations:
- American Friends Service Committee
- American Muslims for Palestine
- Code Pink
- Jewish Voice for Peace
- National Students for Justice in Palestine
- US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
Other groups:
- BDS Chile
- BDS South Africa
- BDS National Committee
Israeli government's $75 million plan to fight BDS
In December, the Israeli government approved a plan which would allocate $75 million to fight BDS.
The government aims to do so by setting up a non-profit organization whose board is made up of government officials and donors from abroad.
The board will oversee the first major "civil-society infrastructure servicing the State of Israel and the pro-Israel community in the fight against the de-legitimization of Israel," according to JPost.