![\"Israelis](\"http:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/F140213YS05-1000x668.jpg\")
At a talk in north London on Sunday night, UK Lawyers for Israel<\/a> (UKLFI) hosted Naomi Linder Kahn, director of the international division of the Israeli NGO Regavim. Initially scheduled for September and then cancelled, UKLFI quietly invited Regavim<\/a> back to London. Na\u2019amod<\/a>, a movement of British Jews against the occupation, of which I am a member, blockaded the entrance to the event. We were there to send a clear message: our community is no home for racists and the far-right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since its founding in 2006 by Bezalel Smotrich \u2014 the leader of the National Union party who calls himself a \u201cproud homophobe<\/a>\u201d \u2014 Regavim has spuriously painted the presence of Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip as \u201cthe quiet occupation\u201d and a \u201csilent conquest<\/a>.\u201d Claiming to advocate for the \u201cprotection\u201d of Israel\u2019s national land, Regavim initiates legal actions in Israeli courts to spur home demolitions and expulsions of Palestinians, particularly in the Negev Desert in southern Israel, and in the occupied West Bank. It further promotes its agenda by publishing reports<\/a> and lobbying the Knesset regarding the so-called \u201chostile takeover of Judea and Samaria.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Regavim\u2019s strategy is to reframe the immoral and illegal military occupation of 52 years into a righteous battle between law-abiding Israeli citizens and thieving Palestinian squatters<\/a>. It claims<\/a> that \u201cthe Jewish people is being robbed of the Land of Israel,\u201d and has been active in efforts \u2014 alongside the state \u2014\u00a0to evacuate Palestinian villages such as Susya<\/a> and Khan al-Ahmar<\/a> in order to make way for Jewish settlements. Regavim has the same ambitions for the unrecognized Bedouin villages of the Negev, calling to \u201cresettle this population<\/a>\u201d \u2014 which it claims is \u201ctaking over the Negev<\/a>\u201d \u2014 while promoting<\/a>\u00a0the establishment of Jewish communities in their place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Regavim further justifies its agenda by claiming that it is helping to crack down on \u201cillegal construction\u201d by Palestinians. Yet this approach is clearly one-sided, focused only on preventing Palestinian development: when the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the demolition of buildings in the settlement of Netiv HaAvot, which were illegally constructed on the private land<\/a> of the Mussa family, Kahn slammed the decision as \u201cdraconian<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent years Regavim has extended its activities internationally, including through meetings<\/a> with European Parliament members, campaigning<\/a> in favor of Brexit, and speaking at Jewish diaspora communal events. Most worrying of all, in August Regavim organized a tour<\/a> of the occupied territories for a member of the far-right<\/a> Alternative for Germany (AfD), a political party described<\/a> by the Central Council of Jews in Germany as supporting \u201canti-Jewish hate and Holocaust relativizing or even denial.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This week was not the first time that Kahn has spoken to the British Jewish community. In May this year, at a \u201cDay of Inspiration\u201d organized by Mizrachi UK, a center for religious Zionism, and attended by U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Spanish and Portuguese Senior Rabbi Joseph Dweck, Kahn delivered a lecture<\/a> entitled \u201cSovereignty over the Land of Israel.\u201d The talk exhibited Regavim\u2019s obsession<\/a> with \u201crestoring Israeli sovereignty\u201d in areas seemingly threatened by Palestinian populations, even when the communities in question are Israeli citizens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On this occasion, though, Kahn\u2019s visit was facilitated by UKLFI, an organization of lawyers with an illustrious list of patrons<\/a>. This includes Lord Pannick, a leading barrister for human rights and constitutional law, known for his work with businesswoman and activist Gina Miller in challenging the government\u2019s approach to Brexit. Having previously lauded<\/a> the Israeli Supreme Court for protecting human rights, one wonders why he would be comfortable with inviting an organization associated with the far-right, pro-settlement movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the same organization that received<\/a> more than a million shekels from the Binyamin Regional Council, the local authority representing many numerous illegal settlements and outposts including Psagot and Kokhav HaShachar. Are Pannick and his fellow patrons, such as Baroness Deech, Lord Millett and Professor Richard Susskind, proud to welcome a group whose work foments incitement against an occupied population? <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is all too obvious that by hiding behind the hypocritical rhetoric of fact-finding and law-enforcement, Regavim attempts to invert the facts of the occupation. While the \u201crule of law\u201d is one of the most basic constitutional safeguards of any country, in Israel, it also has a darker purpose: it is a central tool for the occupying state to rule over Palestinians and continually deny them rights, while retaining the legitimate veneer of a legal process. Through Regavim\u2019s selective enforcement of planning law, Palestinian homes both within Israel and in the occupied territories are demolished, property is destroyed, and plans for development are rejected<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regavim\u2019s potent cocktail of \u201clawfare\u201d and fear-inducing public relations thus amounts to incitement against the Palestinian people and portrays their very existence as an existential threat to Israel. Kahn both represents and bolsters this consistent disregard for Palestinian rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Activists](\"http:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Naamod-Kahn-Action-e1575557549888-1024x683.jpg\")