The European Leadership Network (ELNET) and The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation (thinc.) partner to offer a leadership training seminar to all organizations which advocate for Israel.
The objective of the course is to empower professionals and the leadership of civil society and non-profit organisations to discern lawfare from the fair application of international law to Israel and the Israel/Palestine conflict, and to defend Israel in the international political arena.
The program is open to anyone who wants to champion the fair application of international law to Israel, the Jewish people and the peoples of the Middle East generally.
The course will also make clear that the way Israel is treated, by the UN and others, has ramifications and implications for other peoples and territories in the Middle East and beyond – positive and negative.
This online program is developed by thinc. in cooperation with ELNET. It comprises 5 sessions. The first session took place on 23 September. Session 3 is scheduled for 10 Novemober. In each session, a panel of experts will give short presentations. These will be followed by Q&A and discussion.
All sessions start at 4 pm CET.
Duration: 90 mins.
Click here for a complete course overview including dates and speakers.
Course material
The program follows the outline of the book Israel on Trial by Dr Matthijs de Blois and Andrew Tucker. Participants may order the book directly by email to [email protected] for the special price of € 25 including postage.
Session 4, 24 November – Lawfare
We will discuss how international law has been interpreted and applied, and the international legal system has been deliberately used, over the past decades in ways that undermine or infringe the sovereignty of the State of Israel. Who are the main players in this ‘lawfare’? Is the use of law to achieve military or political goals justified? What checks and balances does international law provide to prevent the misuse of law?
Topics include:
- The role of the United Nations institutions with respect to “Palestine”
- ‘Lawfare’ and manipulation of the UN and its institutions by the PLO
- Case study: the International Criminal Court (ICC)
- “Zionism is racism” and the apartheid charge against Israel
- The use of terror as a political and legal weapon
SPEAKERS
Mrs Anne Herzberg is the Legal Advisor of NGO Monitor. She is a graduate of Oberlin College and Columbia University Law School. Prior to joining NGO Monitor, she worked as an attorney in New York. Her areas of research include business and human rights, international human rights law, the laws of armed conflict, universal jurisdiction, international fact finding, NGOs, and the UN.
She is the author of the widely cited “NGO Lawfare: Exploitation of Courts in the Arab-Israeli Conflict”.
Mr Joshua Kern is instructed in matters at the cutting edge of international criminal law and European extradition practice. His background is in landmark cases of historical importance, including: the trial of the Foreign Minister of the Khmer Rouge (Ieng Sary) and the trial of the former Prime Minister of the Croat entity established in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war in the former Yugoslavia (Jadranko Prlić).
Col. (res) Daniel Reisner served between 1995 and 2004 as the head of the Israel Defense Force’s International Law Department and advised the Israeli leadership i.a. on Israeli-Palestinian relations and counter-terrorism operations. Between 1994 and 2014, he served as a senior member of Israel’s peace negotiation teams.
Since 2018, Daniel has undertaken a leadership position in the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IJL) where he has been active, submitting i.a. an Amicus Curiae brief to the ICC on behalf of the IJL.
MODERATOR
Mr Andrew Tucker studied law in Australia, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands. He was a Fellow of the Law Faculty of the University of Melbourne from 1994 to 2001, and Research Associate at the TMC Asser Institute in The Hague from 1996-1998.
Andrew was Legal Counsel to the European Coalition for Israel (ECI) from 2010-2019. He is co-founder and Director of thinc. (2017), and co-author of ‘Israel on Trial’, Soest (NLD), thinc. (2018).
