Top Israeli human rights lawyer: ‘My Jewish upbringing makes me speak out on Israel’
Leading Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard says there was a duty to respond to October 7, but is in London to warn of a proposed law that could silence peace-builders
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
As one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers and an outspoken campaigner for Palestinian rights, Michael Sfard had arrived in the UK to raise awareness about the latest attempt to silence critics of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Proposed legislation passing through the Knesset would, if passed, impose an unprecedented 80% tax on foreign state donations to a multitude of non-profit organisations working across Israeli society.
In addition, international NGOs that receive upwards of 50% of their income from governments are already considered foreign state entities under Israeli law, and therefore any donations made by them to Israeli groups would also be liable for 80% tax.
The legislation would mainly impact NGOs working in the sphere of peace building, human rights and other social issues where they may be critical of the government, who receive most or some of their funding this way.
Other NGOs supportive of the government receive private funding from overseas which will not be impacted by the legislation.
They will also be exempt from the legislation if they receive Israeli state funding or the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich exempts them, entirely politicising civil society in Israel.
Deliberations on the Bill, the latest incarnation of various proposals presented to Israel’s parliament over the past 12 years, began in earnest earlier this month.
Sfard, 53, has little doubt about the implications of these proposals, which are now being fast-tracked by the Netanyahu government.
“The goal is to shut down the part of Israeli civil society that is critical of government policy,” he tells Jewish News, after agreeing to be interviewed in central London.
“Not only when it comes to the occupation or the treatment of Palestinians, but also other spheres, like environmental groups, LGBT groups, organisations that promote women’s rights, some dealing with the fight against religious coercion.
“The government wants as part of the judicial overhaul to stifle elements within Israeli society that could be critical of its work, of its actions – courts, academia, the media and civil society.”
Arriving in the UK to lobby politicians and groups supporting a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East, Sfard stresses the urgent need for interested parties here to step up pressure on Israel’s government and voice opposition to the planned laws.
In the past, the US administration could be relied upon to put pressure on Israel to delay introducing the Bill, alongside partners such as the EU and this country.
But today, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, “the new American administration is completely a different type, ” says Sfard.
“They’re much less interested in promoting Israeli democracy, I don’t think they care about a free and diverse Israel.
“I mean in the past administrations have been effective in stopping this legislation through the notion of shared values, the idea that a vibrant democracy must allow space for dissenting voices.”
In a legal career spanning over two decades, Sfard – the grandchild of Polish-British Holocaust survivor and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman – has been unafraid to be one of Israel’s most prominent dissenting voices.
As we meet, Sfard admits that developments in the day-by-day bleaker war in Gaza have come to dominate his thoughts again.
Particularly shocking to the former reservist in the IDF, who served in the Gaza Strip while at law school and in the Nahal Brigade in Lebanon as a military paramedic, have been the statements made in recent days by Israel’s ultranationalist minister Bezalel Smotrich.
In media interviews the Israel’s finance minister spoke openly of a new military push to ensure some 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza would be “concentrated” in a narrow strip of land between the Egyptian border and the so-called Morag Corridor, running between Khan Younis and the border city of Rafah.
Smotrich had not been the only leading Israeli voice to use the word “concentrate” either.
This word had been uttered by IDF generals in recent days as well.
“We have come to a moment where Israeli leaders and Israeli generals use this word and that’s mind-boggling,” says Sfard, with typical forthrightness.
“How can a Jewish politician use the word ‘concentrate’ without understanding the impact?”
Asked if he actually is alluding to comparisons with the concentration camps by the Nazis, Sfard is careful with his response.
“Regardless of whether this brings to mind concentration camps – and by the way in history these were not always extermination camps – there are concentration camps used for other purposes, that is not what I wanted to say,” he reasons.
“What I wanted to say is Jewish leaders around the world, and definitely Jewish spiritual leaders, must now voice their objection to the Israeli government’s plan to get rid of the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza.”
Asked why he believes Jews not residing in Israel should put themselves forward as critics of the Gaza war, Sfard is equally forthright.
“Because this is something that for the Jewish people…this, this will haunt us,” he argues. “This is something that will not go away soon.
“And you know, I have concerns about the rise of antisemitism.
“But this is not an excuse not to say the right thing when you know atrocities are about to happen.”
At this point, Jewish News asks Sfard for his own recollections of October 7th, 2023.
What were his thoughts as the Hamas massacre became apparent? Did Israel not have the right to launch its military offensive against the terror organisation in Gaza?
“Israel was not just within its rights to launch a counter-offensive, it was under obligation to do so because its civilians were butchered, were abused, and were kidnapped in a satanic orgy of war crimes,” he replies.
“Crimes against humanity which broke my heart, and I am still trying to recover from.”
But Sfard, who was born and raised in the Rehov Brazil public housing complex in Kiryat HaYovel, Jerusalem, recalls it took him just four days after the October 7 attacks before he wrote his first newspaper op-ed raising concern about Israel’s response.
It warned that “revenge” was not the sensible way forward and that while Israel was understandably angered and appalled by the actions of Hamas, that “does not allow us to conduct our war in violation of the laws of war.”
He adds now: “When Israel started its air campaign, an air bombardment campaign, it was clear that we were not going to restrict ourselves to adhering to the laws of war.”
But he says that even though he could not anticipate “how terrible it was going to be”.
Asked how else Israel could be expected to mount its military response to a terror group embedded within the civilian population of Gaza, and protected by underground tunnels, Sfard says “There are several answers to this and first of all, comes the question today – has Hamas been defeated?”
He then adds: “From what we know and see, Israel has systematically eliminated every civilian infrastructure in Gaza.”
When he served in Gaza, Sfard’s view on the effectiveness and morality of Israel’s use of military force in the West Bank to sustain occupation underwent a major change.
Previously he had believed “left-wing soldiers” should agree to patrol the Palestinian territories “to stop bad things from happening” rather than be conscientious objectors.
But in the 1990s he also became a conscientious objector and spent three weeks in military prison due to his refusal to serve as escort for Israeli settlers in Hebron.
He was released from the army in 1994 and attended a course on Jewish-Arab encounters at Neve Shalom. He started his legal apprenticeship with Avigdor Feldman, the founder of B’Tselem, in 1998 and worked with him for several years as an attorney.
Moving to the UK in 2000 with his wife to pursue his Master of Laws at University College London, he would then return to Israel, seeking alliances with others who were now refusing to serve in the IDF.
Opening his office in Tel Aviv in 2004, Sfard rapidly gained a reputation as an expert in international human rights law and the laws of war. In a pressured environment he has gone on to represent Israeli and Palestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements and activists, including at the Israeli Supreme Court.
Nineteen months after the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza, Sfard now says he is unashamedly vocal about what he describes as the “crimes” the Israeli government and military are committing in the region.
“One of the most important audiences for me is the Jewish community,” he adds. “I hope and almost pray, I’m secular, that Jewish leaders around the world, and especially in the UK, which is dear to me because I have family here, will be vocal about these crimes being committed in Gaza and the fact that the Israeli government is planning a new offensive in which one of the aims engraved in the command is to mobilise civilians from across Gaza into one designated area.
“The aim, the end goal is to have a different Strip in which Palestinians are concentrated in a small enclave.”
Is Israel guilty of committing the “genocide” that so many of its most vociferous critics claim it has carried out in Gaza? Sfard responds by stressing that given the sensitivity of the term, he wants to make sure his position is articulated accurately.
“While from day one of the Israeli counter-offensive after 7 October, I have argued time and again that Israel violates the laws of war and that its actions amount to war crimes and worse, I rejected the notion that Israeli forces are committing genocide because of the very strict and narrow legal definition of genocidal intent that is required for the crime to be committed.
“My position was that I have not seen evidence that, as the International Court of Justice puts it in its case law – the ‘only reasonable conclusion they lead to, is that the acts have been carried out with an intent to destroy, annihilate the victim group’.
“I thought there are other reasonable, albeit criminal conclusions regarding the motivations for the starvation, extensive bombardment and forced transfers.”
But he then adds: “I have to say it is growing more and more difficult to retain this position given the recent actions of the Israeli government, and its insistence on continuing the mass killing and the denial of humanitarian aid.”
Sfard is fully aware that his opinion will once again invite criticism and flack, primarily from those who continue to defend Israel’s war in Gaza, and who cite the huge upsurge in antisemitism across the globe as proof that a Jewish state is needed and must be defended now more than ever.
“Antisemitism,” he argues “is a malady that has always been there and is triggered by all kinds of stuff.”
But controversially he now argues that “what the government of Israel is doing is a crime against a very sacred fight against antisemitism. ”
Sfard adds: “By widening the notion of antisemitism and weaponising it… by doing this the danger is that suddenly it won’t be such a big deal to be an antisemite. Because, you know, if everyone is an antisemite, then no one is.
“So I think what the government of Israel is doing is a crime, and it will bite us in the actual fight against antisemitism moving forwards.”
During his latest visit to the UK, Sfard has met with senior figures in the Labour government. Asked what more he believes Keir Starmer’s government should be doing, he appears to ignore calls for the imposition of further arms sale bans and instead brings up a need to push for recognition of a Palestinian state, possibly as soon as next month with the French.
Sfard rejects the argument that recognising Palestine now is a meaningless gesture that would not bring such a state into existence, and instead would only serve as a reward for the terrorists who carried out the October 7th atrocity.
“If France and the UK recognise a Palestinian state it means four out of five permanent members of the UN Security Council have done so,” he says. “The fact that Palestine is recognised by most of the international community has consequences.”
He says recognition by the UK government also has legal implications. Sfard says it is “outrageous” that goods produced in Israeli settlements currently end up in this country.
“Don’t talk to me about labelling,” he opines. “Just stop all trade with settlements. We have an International Court of Justice advisory opinion that states that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Territory is unlawful.
“International law is the only normative framework that should guide us. If we do not follow the law, and spirit of international law, then we have nothing.”
In his latest book, Occupation From Within: A Journey to the Roots of the Israeli Constitutional Coup, Sfard describes the Israeli judicial system as both “magnificent” and one that has “a dark side.”
Speaking to Jewish News it is clear he is still deeply drawn to the country, in some shape or form, while at the same time one of its biggest critics.
At times, he admits the sustained criticism he faces leaves him feeling anxious.
Asked what motivates him to continue under often extreme and intense conditions he says: “My moral Jewish upbringing, the things I learned at home.
“And also my clients, the fact that they need me. Clients that are Palestinians, but also Israeli activists.
“I need to be there for them. The fact they rely on me, and the fact they feel more confident when I represent them, if they feel more confident when I do, injects me with strength.”
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