A/HRC/34/70 an alternative to mandatory military service. Prime Minister Netanyahu promised to remove such organizations from the eligibility list following the criticism by B’Tselem of the country’s settlement policy at the United Nations in October. Gisha, which would be adversely impacted by the proposed legislation, stated that the bill “is about labelling and excluding — as a first step towards delegitimizing — civil society organizations. To put it more bluntly — this is political persecution”.78 60. In early March 2017, the Knesset enacted legislation that would deny an entry visa or residency permit to any non-citizen if that person had worked for an organization that had issued a public call to boycott the State of Israel or had agreed to participate in such a boycott. That would include anyone who focused their call for a boycott only on the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The legislation appears to be the formalization of an earlier policy announced in August 2016 by the Minister of Public Security to deport international human rights defenders who support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement and to prevent others from entering the country. In December 2016, Isabel Apawo Phiri, a Malawian citizen who serves as Associate General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, was denied entry and then deported after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport. The Israeli authorities asserted that the denial of entry was due to the alleged support of her organization for and involvement with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.79 Adalah, an Israeli human rights organization, criticized the legislation, stating: “Freedom of expression is not just the right to express oneself, but also the right to be exposed to perspectives … considered outrageous and infuriating by the majority of [Jewish] Israelis.”80 61. Palestinian human rights organizations have stated that the Knesset statutes and proposed bills adversely affect them as well. Palestinian human rights defenders working in occupied East Jerusalem invariably possess an Israeli residency permit, which they fear may be revoked by the Ministry of the Interior on the grounds that they have breached their loyalty to the State of Israel by advocating human rights issues, supporting boycotts or encouraging the acknowledgment of the Palestinian exodus between 1947 and 1949 (the Nakba). Palestinian human rights organizations also state that these legislative offences intensify the atmosphere of fear and repression for human rights defenders. The impact is also being felt by Palestinian human rights defenders living in Israel on residency permits, such as Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. Restrictions on his international travel were temporarily imposed in April 2016, just after the Intelligence and Transportation Minister had called for the “targeted civil elimination” of the leaders of the movement with the help of Israeli intelligence. 81 C. Conclusions 62. The 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, which becomes more pervasive by the day with no end even remotely in sight, has been profoundly corrosive of human rights and democratic values. How could it be otherwise? To perpetuate an alien rule over almost 5 million people, against their fervent wishes, inevitably requires the repression of rights, erosion of the rule of law, the abrogation of international commitments, the imposition of deeply discriminatory practices, the hollowing-out of well-accepted standards of military behaviour, subjugation of the humanity of the “other”, denial of trends that are plainly evident, the embrace of illiberal politics and — the focus of the present report — the scorning of those civil 78 79 80 81 Gisha, “The battle is not for national service spots, it is for the very foundation of democracy in Israel”, 10 November 2016. Ilan Lior, “In first, Israel denies entry to religious official citing support of BDS movement”, Haaretz, 6 December 2016. See www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9043. See communication sent to Special Rapporteurs by 12 Palestinian human rights organizations, “Urgent appeal concerning human rights defenders working on OPT and Israel,” 13 June 2016, available from alhaq.org/images/stories/PDF/2012/Letter_on_HRDs_pdf.pdf; and Amnesty International, “Israeli government must cease intimidation”. 17