In July 2026, the US hosted a conference attended by representatives from 65 invited countries on “political terrorism”. The conference framed “transnational left extremism” as the defining security challenge of our time. Just a few weeks later, on August 26, 2026, the US government once again intensified its global crackdown on radical-leftist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements. The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed Palestine Action, Masar Badil and Autistici/Inventati on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. Additionally, two individuals, one of them living in Berlin, have allegedly been linked to Masar Badil and also sanctioned financially.
All were designated as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” (SDGTs), with the US government alleging that they had provided financial, material or technological support to terrorism and to organizations already subject to sanctions. Autistici/Inventati was targeted for offering free digital infrastructure as an alternative to large commercial platforms, a qualification the collective rejects.
By imposing sanctions on Palestine Action, Masar Badil and the two individuals, the US government continues its longstanding political, military and economic support of the racist Zionist colonial project and the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Examining the history of the legal basis of these sanctions, namely Executive Order 13224, it becomes clear that the US has always used it to silence Muslim and Palestinian activism and target anti-colonial struggle. The order was issued in September 2001 and subsequently renewed every year. It provides the means to freeze any assets of those marked as terrorists. US citizens and US companies are prohibited from conducting any transactions with those sanctioned. The global dominance of the US financial system, the US dollar and its companies thus have indirect effects abroad. Banks, platforms and providers most likely sever ties to avoid compliance risk.
Among the first organizations targeted in 2001 as part of George W. Bush’s imperialist “War on Terror” was the largest Muslim charity organization in the US, the “Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development”. As a Palestinian-American organization, it supported widows, orphans and marginalized people in need living in the occupied Palestinian territories. Five of its members, the Holy Land Five, were unjustly sentenced and imprisoned in what is considered to be the largest “terrorism” financing case in U.S. history. Two of the five members remain in prison; Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker both received 65-year sentences.
At present, the US racist, white nationalist and Christian supremacist counterinsurgency doctrine is being continuously globalized. The August 26 sanctions are yet another escalation in the global repression of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and self-determination. Without any form of trial, completely legal activities such as organizing demonstrations are de facto rendered illegal. The ones who dare to try to stop the genocidal war machine and its weapon production with their own hands are criminalized. Today, they are called terrorists. In other times, these brave people of conscience were called heroes.
