continued from page 6

journey. Ells and I both looked forward to 
those visits joyfully, knowing relief always 
entered our home when they did, helping 
us to look into our own strengths and to 
talk about those end-of-life issues we may 
have feared.
It was Natalie, with her quiet strength 
and endless resources, who helped guide us 
to our many care options or was just there 
as a friend and listening ear.
It is difficult for me to put into words 
what those last final months were like, 

for me and my best friend and mate of 57 
years. Just in reflection, I know that beauty 
was all around us, and we could peacefully 
reach for what lay ahead.
It was truly Life-Links and Jewish 
Hospice that gave me the strength to offer 
Ells whatever he needed, for both of us to 
feel unafraid and safe. It was in that harmo-
ny that we faced his ending together.
Ellsworth left us quietly and gently late 
the night of Nov.17, surrounded by his 
children and grandchildren and me, in 

the bedroom we had always shared, in the 
home so filled with love and laughter.
We are so blessed in the Detroit commu-
nity to have the remarkable resource of a 
dedicated Life-Links and Jewish Hospice. 
I learned, gratefully, to reach out for them 
early on our path. Do not be afraid to make 
that first call. 

Janet Birnkrant Levine lives in Huntington Woods. 

If you’re facing end-of life care, reach out to Jewish 

Hospice and Chaplaincy at jewishhospice.org.

8 | MARCH 18 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

T

he announcement by the prosecu-
tor of the International Criminal 
Court that she was opening inves-
tigations against Israel for alleged war 
crimes should not have been 
a surprise. This was the cul-
mination of a 20-year polit-
ical campaign that began 
even before the ICC opened 
its doors in The Hague in 
2002.
The strategy was launched 
during the NGO Forum 
of the 2001 U.N. Durban 
conference, in which 5,000 delegates con-
demned the “Israeli systematic perpetra-
tion of racist crimes, including war crimes, 
acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
At the time, the Israeli government did 
not take this threat seriously. The ICC was 
still a vague framework, and Israel, like 
the United States, Russia and China, was 
not a member. In addition, the Palestinian 
Authority was not a state and did not have 
the standing to initiate a complaint.
But this network of NGOs, in coop-
eration with the Palestinian leadership, 
pursued an ICC investigation — known 
as lawfare — with great intensity, spend-
ing tens of millions of euros, pounds and 
krona. Human Rights Watch played a 
central role from the beginning, joined 

by Amnesty International, numerous 
Palestinian NGOs with ties to the PLO and 
PFLP terrorist groups and a number of 
Israeli groups claiming to promote human 
rights.
European governments provided much 
of the NGO funding for this campaign: 
Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, 
the Netherlands, Germany, the European 
Union, Ireland and others.
It was only after the U.N. Human Rights 
Council’s 2009 Goldstone Report on 
Gaza repeated the NGOs’ accusations and 
threatened a referral to the ICC that the 
Israeli government began paying attention 
to this campaign. 
Supported by the NGO network, 
Palestinians gained U.N. General 
Assembly approval for calling themselves 
a state in 2014, despite the absence of the 
necessary criteria (such as a government 
in total control of a defined territory), and 
immediately used this dubious achieve-
ment to join the ICC and file complaints 
against Israel.
In 2015, ICC prosecutor Fatou 
Bensouda announced that she would con-
sider jurisdiction and in December 2019, 
Bensouda claimed jurisdiction and “a 
reasonable basis” for investigating possible 
Israeli war crimes, and last month, after 
two of the three judges who reviewed her 

claims declared their approval, she moved 
quickly to open a formal investigation.
Major damage in the form of demoni-
zation of Israel has already been done, but 
if enough counter-pressure can be applied, 
including by negating the power and 
resources of the NGOs behind this process, 
the ICC travesty might be stopped. The 
current prosecutor is finishing her term, 
and her successor, Karim Khan, from the 
United Kingdom, might be persuaded to 
halt the pseudo-investigations, particularly 
if the survival of the ICC is at stake.
In parallel, European funders of the 
campaign must be confronted directly 
and consistently. Anyone who is con-
cerned about the abuse of the ICC for 
political campaigns, including Americans 
and Israelis, should demand to end the 
demonization under the facade of human 
rights and international law. Germany, for 
instance, is one of the main funders of the 
ICC and the largest single supporter of the 
NGOs leading the campaigns. The absur-
dity of German funding for anti-Israel 
NGOs has not yet received the necessary 
priority.
September 2021 will mark the 20th 
anniversary of the U.N.’s antisemitic 
Durban conference and the NGO Forum, 
where both ICC lawfare and the BDS cam-
paigns against Israel were launched. The 
best way to mark this date is to ensure that 
the perpetrators and their allies have noth-
ing to celebrate. 

Gerald M. Steinberg is a professor of political 

science at Bar-Ilan University and president of the 

Institute for NGO Research.

essay
From Durban to The Hague 
— 20 Years of NGO Lawfare

Gerald M. 
Steinberg
JNS/Israel 
Hayom

