HEKS

Activity

• HEKS (Hilfswerk der Evangelischen Kirchen Schweiz) is the aid organization of the Protestant Churches of Switzerland.
• Founded in 1946 by the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches; based in Zurich and “has an office for French-speaking Switzerland in Lausanne. The French abbreviation is EPER (Entraide Protestante Suisse).”

Funding

• In 2024, total income was CHF 137.3 million, of which CHF 15.9 million came from the Swiss government; total expenses were CHF 144.5 million, of which CHF 2.3 million was spent in “Palestine/Israel.”
• HEKS donors include the European Union, Switzerland, United States, United Nations, Bread for the World, and Norwegian Church Aid. (See table below for further funding information.)

Funding to Politicized NGOs

• HEKS has provided funding to a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict including Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel(EAPPI), Ma’an Development Center, PalVision, Culture and Free Thought Association, Zochrot, and Emek Shaveh. (See table below for further funding information.) 

Funding to Palestinian NGOs

• In 2023-2026, HEKS is granting CHF 300,000 to Ma’an Development Center to support the “inhabitants of the Palestinian villages in developing and cultivating their land in order to protect them from expropriation.”
  • In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas atrocities, Ma’an Development Center was a signatory on a statement calling to “emphasize that the root causes of these events is the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel.” According to the statement, “We consider the flagrant unconditional support the U.S and European officials are offering Israel occupation while ignoring the plight of the Palestinian people as complicity in Israeli human rights violations and crimes against humanity, including the crime of apartheid. It is the international community’s failure to hold the Israel occupation accountable for its crimes that have led to the current situation.”
  • In May 2019, MA’AN Director General Sami Khader attended a memorial event organized by the PFLP that centered on PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna. The hall was decorated with PFLP paraphernalia.
  • In May 2018, Ma’an Development Center employee Ahmad Abdallah Aladini was killed in the violence on the Gaza border. Aladini was a “comrade” of the PFLP terror group.
• In 2024, HEKS is granting CHF 20,269 to Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation (PYALARA) for “Health prevention and professional networks for Palestinian workers.”
  • PYALARA has produced TV programs that “glorify terrorists,” including suicide bombers.
• In 2021-2023, HEKS granted CHF 184,500 to the Culture and Free Thought Association for the “Promotion of young women and men and strengthening of social cohesion.”
  • CFTA’s Director Mariam Zakoot signed a 2016 statement from Palestinian feminists supporting BDS and “deplor(ing) the colonial attitude inherent in some Israeli feminists’ request of us to sign a statement in favor of liberal ideals, ‘dialogue’ and ‘co-existence,’ and against the effective solidarity with the struggle for rights.”
  • In September 2017, CFTA organized a workshop on the rights of women in partnership with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. The workshop “touched upon a number of solid Palestinian feminist models such as Taghreed Al-Buttama, Maha Nassar and Laila Khaled, who have taught the Zionist enemy painful lessons in various combat operations.”
• In 2020-2021, HEKS provided CHF 56,100 to PalVision to “provide targeted support to Palestinian young people in East Jerusalem.”
  • Many of PalVision’s board members, officials, and employees have justified and glorified violence against Israeli civilians and praised individual terrorists and terrorist attacks. Additionally, they have employed antisemitic and “anti-normalization” rhetoric in their public statements.

Funding to Israeli NGOs

• In 2024-2026, HEKS is granting CHF 148,913 to Akevot for a project titled “Israel after the founding of the state: What do the archives tell?”
  • In 2021, Akevot launched a project funded by Switzerland titled “Living Memory: Expanding Space for Critical Reflection on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict through Archival Documentation.” According to the contract between the Swiss government and Akevot, the project specifically focuses on “myth-breaking” and dismantling the founding narratives of Israel.
  • Additionally, according to the contract, Swiss funding goes to researching Israeli government archives to uncover documentation of “fraught and little-known events and mechanisms that problematize or even contradict ‘the official story’ of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Akevot exposes the “Jewish-Israeli Public” to what it sees as the “root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and pushes them to “recognize Israel’s responsibility for historical injustices.” A major component is a partnership with the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, which regularly publishes articles based on and/or by Akevot reports.
• In 2024-2026, HEKS is providing CHF 111,838 to Zochrot to “promote the discourse on the right of return for Palestinian refugees in the Israeli public.”
  • Zochrot supports a “One State Solution” or a “de-Zionized Palestine,” and refers to Israel as having an “ethnicized and racialized Zionist” system.
  • In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas atrocities, Zochrot posted a Twitter thread: “The pain we’re experiencing now is part of a trail of pain traced back at least 75yr ago. Truth telling & pointing out colonial structures of power & dispossession has been and remains our an integral part of our mission.. What happened on 7/10 and what continues to happen in #Gaza should be a reminder of that truth and an eye opener to the #Nakba that never ended and continues to be more present and resemble what happened in 1948… It is the Israeli society that must choose a different path towards #Justice which must uphold #Palestinians right of return.”
• In 2024-2026, HEKS is providing CHF 150,000 to Emek Shaveh to ensure that the “administration and design of the historical sites in Israel and Palestine are in accordance with international law.”
  • While Emek Shaveh claims that it “oppose[s] attempts to use archaeological finds to legitimize acts that harm disadvantaged communities,” it promotes distorted facts and unsubstantiated positions that promote the Palestinian narrative of victimization and sole Israeli aggression.
  • Utilizes highly biased and politicized rhetoric, accusing Israel of seeking “to demolish Palestinian village on ‘archaeological’ grounds,” and claims that the Elad Foundation is attempting to “Judaize” Jerusalem.

Funding to International NGOs

• In 2020-2024, HEKS granted CHF 839,300 to Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel(EAPPI), ACT Alliance, and the World Council of Churches for the “Protection and defense of human rights in Israel and Palestine.”
  • EAPPI sends volunteers to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation.” Upon completion of the program, the volunteers return to their home countries and churches where many engage in anti-Israel advocacy, including advocating for BDS campaigns in churches, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany, and other delegitimization strategies.

Political Advocacy

• Promotes a Palestinian “right of return” stating: “Those suffering the most at the roughly 1.8 million refugees and internally displaced persons now living in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel. The most of them are descendants of the refugees who had to leave their villages in 1948 and 1967 and to this day are still awaiting a permanent solution.” If implemented, this “return” would effectually mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
• Promotes BDS initiatives, and in 2012 sponsored an ad in the Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung supporting the Migros supermarket’s decision to boycott Israeli products and urging readers to back the initiative.
• HEKS claims to have been “among the first” to sign a petition calling on Israel to allow building materials into Gaza. HEKS and the others petitioners purposefully ignore the dangers of Hamas acquiring dual-use materials, claiming that “the blockade, including restrictions on building materials, cannot be justified on security grounds.”
• In April 2024, HEKS was a signatory on a statement calling to “Suspend the EU – Israel Association Agreement” and to “suspend all arms transfers to Israel.”
• In August 2021, HEKS hosted an event with the Bisan Center on the “Social Mobilization for the Implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants in Palestine.”
  • On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense declared Bisan a “terror organization” because it is part of “a network of organizations” that operates “on behalf of the ‘Popular Front’.”
  • Ubai Aboudi, Bisan’s Executive Director, was sentenced in June 2020 to 12-months in prison. According to his conviction, Aboudi “was convicted of being a member and an activist of the Popular Front organization during the period starting from 2016 and ending in July 2019.” Specifically, Aboudi “was responsible for recruiting additional activists to the organization from young people and students, as well as strengthening the organization’s infrastructure in the area” (on file with NGO Monitor).
• HEKS co-sponsored Breaking the Silence’s 2015 exhibition in Zurich. Breaking the Silence promotes “war crimes” charges against Israel, based on anonymous and unverifiable hearsay “testimonies.”
• Funded a 2012 “BADIL-Zochrot Study Visit to Cape Town” in order to “transform[] the thinking about return from pure abstraction to something more concrete, in the hope that our struggle will contribute to it someday becoming a lived reality.” Following this visit, Zochrot published “The Cape Town Document.” Conclusions include:
  • Visions for a New State: “It is our hope that the new political structure created in de-Zionized Palestine will be that of a single democratic state (as opposed to the logic of ethnic separation embedded in the so-called ‘two-state solution’) with clear separation of church and state. This society will ideally be demilitarized, but due to the highly speculative and futuristic nature of this document, and the unstable political situation in the region, we have not managed to come to an agreement regarding the necessity of a standing army.”