The Hague Group’s terror links exposed

When the anti-Israel bloc of countries known as The Hague Group resolved to target the Jewish State with legal, economic, and diplomatic measures in July 2025, the terrorist group Hamas issued a statement of approval. It has now been revealed that the bloc, led by South Africa and Colombia, has been advised by groups supportive of terrorism from its inception. 

South African Zionist Federation National Chairperson Craig Pantanowitz says this is a “national embarrassment” for South Africa. 

Pantanowitz says the government’s posture “does not elevate South Africa, but diminishes it. When the language of justice is captured for narrow political ends, every genuine human rights cause is weakened, and South Africa bears a measure of responsibility for that loss.” 

On a webinar on 30 April, Executive Secretary Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla said that The Hague Group, and its South Africa and Colombia co-chairs, are advised by “a variety of Palestinian organisations [sympathetic to Hamas]”, from “Al-Haq to Al-Shabaka, both based in Ramallah”, as reported by Jewish news site JNS.org. Gandikota-Nellutla went on to say that these groups have been present at “every single ministerial meeting”. 

She said the groups have not been “formally” included in The Hague Group “because that’s precisely what would scare away the Europeans ‒ to see this as a radical campaign group, not as a diplomatic bloc”. The South African and Colombian co-chairs of the group have “done a fantastic job building this hybrid model, getting advice [from anti-Israel groups] while still retaining diplomatic integrity”, she said. 

Formed in January 2025, The Hague Group was created to coordinate measures to hold Israel accountable”. Ignoring human rights abuses and wars in members’ own backyards, the first meeting included representatives of the governments of Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa. However, Honduras and Bolivia left the group in March, after establishing warmer ties with Israel. 

Gandikota-Nellutla’s comments were made during a webinar hosted by United Staff for Gaza, an organisation that consists of current and former United Nations (UN) staff members, who push for boycotts of Israel. She may have thought she was speaking confidentially. On the call, Andrew Gilmour, United Staff for Gaza Chair, told her “not to tell us anything that you would rather was not made public”. 

Regarding the groups that Gandikota-Nellutla said are advising The Hague Group, Al-Haq’s General Director, Shawan Jabarin, has been linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organisation. In 2024, The Jerusalem Post and NGO Monitor reported that Jabarin was part of the South African delegation to the International Court of Justice, along with other individuals linked to Al-Haq and the PFLP. 

Al-Shabaka, a US-based nonprofit, is billed as a Palestinian think tank but has a long history of boycotting Israel and justifying terrorism. 

In February 2025, news site Jewish Onliner reported that the first gathering of The Hague Group was hosted by Progressive International, which “has repeatedly expressed support for terrorist groups”. For example, in November 2023, Progressive International published excerpts from a PFLP programme, advocating for “armed struggle” against Israel. In September 2024, Progressive International praised former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In October 2021, it condemned Israel for designating PFLP-affiliated groups such as Al-Haq as terrorist organisations. 

Gandikota-Nellutla is also the Co-General Coordinator of Progressive International, and has stated that “Zionism turns everything it touches into evil”. 

One of the speakers at the first meeting of The Hague Group was Ahmed Alnaouq, Outreach and Advocacy Officer for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. Investigative organisation Gnasher Jew found that Alnaouq spreads antisemitic narratives and promotes terrorist propaganda, and his family has deep ties to Hamas. 

Dr Ariel Cohen, non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Eurasia and Global Energy Centers, tweeted in response to the JNS.org report, “By collaborating with these terrorist organisations, South Africa, Colombia, and other UN members are providing state support to terrorism.” 

Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer tweeted, “the mask has slipped … the so-called ‘Hague Group’ is not a neutral coalition defending international law but a coordinated political campaign guided behind closed doors by PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organisation]-linked organisations in Ramallah, including Al-Haq, a group under US sanctions and tied to the terrorist PFLP.” 

Pantanowitz says, “The Hague Group has now been exposed for what it is.” A coalition that presents itself publicly as the “conscience of the international legal order”, while “disguising the company it keeps”, has “forfeited any serious claim to credibility. Coalitions built on concealment do not defend international law, they corrode it.” 

He says this pattern is familiar. “A network of governments and activist organisations, several with documented links to extremist and sanctioned actors, drapes itself in the language of human rights to pursue the isolation of the world’s only Jewish state.” 

The selectivity “gives the project away”, says Pantanowitz. “No comparable energy is directed at the regimes that detain, torture, and slaughter their own populations across the region. Only Israel attracts this elaborate diplomatic apparatus, because Israel is the target it was built to attack.” 

David May, a research analyst at US think tank The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says international law has become another front in the campaign to destroy Israel. “Palestinian terrorist groups have branched out into this space, using nonprofits to raise money and attack Israel.” 

Al-Haq is one of the primary embodiments of this strategy, says May. “Jabarin was a senior PFLP activist according to Israeli court documents, simultaneously overseeing human rights work and terrorist activities.” 

Al-Haq’s involvement in The Hague Group and other lawfare efforts is unsurprising, says May. “It has been a chief architect of this strategy. The only surprising thing is that some Western countries have come along for the ride, and in so doing, have exposed the hypocrisy of political activism posing as an impartial pursuit of justice, potentially undermining the very foundations of international law.” 

Former senior White House official Lawrence J Haas is a senior fellow for US foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council think tank. He told the SA Jewish Report he, too, is not surprised that The Hague Group is being advised by these organisations. 

“Global institutions, from the UN to various collective bodies of nations, have long been infused with anti-Israel outlooks and activities,” says Haas. The Hague Group is a “quintessential example of such a collective body”.