For decades, the Treasury Department has politicized its authority to impose sanctions. Now, however, with the Trump administration sanctioning three Palestinian human rights organizations, civil society activists around the world are shocked and terrified: Could they be next?

The alarm is due to the brazen willingness of President Donald Trump to sanction the staff of these Palestinian groups specifically because of their advocacy with the International Criminal Court to hold Israeli war criminals accountable.

It’s the first time the U.S. has levied sanctions against an organization specifically for its efforts to use lawful, peaceful tools of advocacy in pursuit of legal accountability. There is no pretense other than the groups’ work on legal issues that the administration doesn’t like.

Copying another page from the authoritarian playbook, Trump now has global civil society directly in the crosshairs of the U.S. government’s legal, financial, and criminal arsenals. The next disfavored issue, these groups fear, could be climate change, arms control, or reproductive rights — virtually anything.

To justify its recent sanctions against Al Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the Treasury announcement said the groups “directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals.”

The only other sanction the U.S. ever imposed on a human rights organization was earlier this year against Addameer, a Palestinian group that the Trump administration claimed was linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

Blocking Accountability

Trump has gone far out of his way to shield Israel from any form of........

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