Whitewashing “Resistance” – Human Rights Funding to Organizations Blurring the Lines between Violence and Nonviolence
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Click to read this report in Spanish, Limpiando La Imagen De La “Resistencia” Palestina: La Financiación De Organizaciones Que Manipulan Los Argumentos De Los Derechos Humanos Para Confundir La Violencia Y La No Violencia
Clarification: Based on statements from NOVACT and PSCC (press release on NOVACT’s website dated February 5, 2017; statement changed on May 10), an article in the Spanish newspaper Intereconomia, and various Arab media, this report originally stated that Munther Amira and Manal Tamimi (affiliated with PSCC and traveling to Spain in partnership with NOVACT) were arrested in Spain. On May 9, 2017, NOVACT claimed in the Jerusalem Post that “Amira and Tamimi were never arrested nor had problems with Spanish authorities.”
There remains significant confusion regarding this incident, which we have been unable to clarify. As a result we have updated the relevant sections in our report.
Executive Summary
- A number of government-funded Palestinian and European NGOs repeatedly manipulate human rights through the use of “resistance” rhetoric, blurring the lines between violence and nonviolence, denigrating security concerns, and legitimizing attacks against civilians. Some of these groups also have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – a designated terrorist organization by the EU, U.S., Canada, and Israel.
- “Resistance” is the term used by Palestinians to refer to armed groups that carry out attacks against Israel- including the PFLP, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad- and is used in this way by many of the NGOs discussed in this report.
- Spanish NGO Novact – funded by Spain, the EU, and the UN – invited Palestinian NGO activists Munther Amira and Manal Tamimi to an EU-funded conference on “preventing violent extremism.” Tamimi frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media, tweeting in September 2015: “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.” Amira described a violent demonstration as part of a “struggle against the Nazi occupation.”
- PASSIA, an NGO registered in Israel, implements a project together with the German public-benefit federal enterprise GIZ. PASSIA calls the wave of stabbings that began in October 2015 as a “youth uprising” and refers to “Palestinian martyr, Baha Eleyan.” Eleyan was one of two terrorists to board a bus in Jerusalem in October 2015 armed with a gun and a knife, murdering three and injuring seven.
- The NGO ties to the PFLP range from establishment and operation of NGOs by the PFLP itself to NGO officials and staffers being convicted of terrorism charges by Israeli courts. Some of these individuals have been denied entry and exit visas by Israeli (and Jordanian) authorities due to security concerns.
- Donors to the PFLP-linked NGOs include the EU, the governments of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Norway, Ireland, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, and Switzerland, and the United Nations.
Recommendations
The examples presented in this report are symptomatic of an overall lack of accountability and scrutiny in government funding to NGOs that are politically active in the Arab-Israeli conflict. This results in financial backing for groups that legitimize violence, in sharp contradistinction to the government funders that are otherwise committed to facilitating a negotiated “two-state” vision.
In order to address this issue effectively and reduce such funding, NGO Monitor recommends:
- The establishment of inter-parliamentary working groups with Members of Knesset and European parliamentarians in order to enhance oversight and arrive at mutually agreed upon funding guidelines. An inter-parliamentary forum will enable pragmatic, constructive dialogue and provide a platform for the discussion of specific cases of direct and indirect funding, information exchange, and consultation with experts (research institutes, academics, journalists, etc.).
- Increased coordination and information sharing among Israeli government branches, so as to identify cases of misplaced funding to Palestinian, Israeli, and European NGOs, and to address the relevant parties.
- Increased coordination and transfer of information on NGO funding between Israeli security apparatuses and their European counterparts.
- Regular engagement in a respectful, informed dialogue with European governments on funding to civil society via diplomatic channels.
Introduction
The banner of human rights provides non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world with a halo of credibility and impartiality, thus enhancing their access to funding and, more importantly, to decision making processes. Unfortunately, many NGOs routinely exploit the rhetoric of universal human rights and international law to promote narrow ideological and political campaigns.
Several European-funded NGOs involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict go further, using the façade of human rights and international law to blur the lines between “peaceful” or “nonviolent” campaigns and violent “resistance” including attacks against civilians. Some of these organizations also have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – a designated terrorist organization by the EU, US, Canada, and Israel. “Resistance” is the term used by Palestinians to refer to armed groups that carry out attacks against Israel- including the PFLP, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad- and is used in this way by many of the NGOs discussed in this report.
By exploiting the language of human rights and in partnership with a vast, well-funded NGO industry, these groups are able to amplify their claims, garner undue exposure, and seek legitimacy for their radical ideologies. Their messages, which are in blatant defiance of their funders’ policies, resonate in a global context of rising populism and a creeping extremism that rewards fearmongering, incitement, and misleading rhetoric.
The first section of this report demonstrates that NGO rhetoric is marked by a blurring of moral distinctions and a gradual escalation from “defending human rights” to “peaceful resistance” to “popular resistance” and finally outright violence. The second section provides examples of government funded NGOs that openly legitimize terrorism while claiming a nonviolent agenda. Finally, the report will lay out the ties of a number of “human rights” NGOs to the PFLP terrorist organization.
It is important to note that these same groups are also the leading organizations behind international political warfare campaigns such as BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and lawfare.
Legitimate Resistance?
A number of European-funded NGOs systematically attempt to create a façade of legitimacy surrounding “resistance.” Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) consistently labels terrorist attacks as a part of the “legitimate right to resist the occupation.” For example, in April 2016, founder and director of PCHR Raji Sourani declared that “I think resistance is our right and our obligation.” Addameer refers to Palestinian prisoners convicted of security offenses as “political prisoners,” including those convicted of murder and attempted murder of Israeli civilians. In November 2015, in the midst of a wave of extreme violence against Israeli civilians, Al-Haq and French NGO International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) wrote a joint letter addressed to the European Union Foreign Affairs Ministers that condemned Israel’s security response to the terrorism, calling it an attempt to “quell legitimate Palestinian opposition to Israel’s oppression.” It is noteworthy in this context that Shawan Jabarin, director of Al-Haq and secretary general of FIDH, was identified by the Israeli Supreme Court as “among the senior activists of the Popular Front terrorist organization” (for more details, see final section of this report).
The Kairos Palestine document, a key resource for church groups around the world promoted by the World Council of Churches and others, is another example of blurring the lines between non-violence and “resistance.” According to the Kairos document, Israel falsely defines “armed resistance” as terrorism in order to “distort the real nature of the conflict, presenting it as an Israeli war against terror, rather than an Israeli occupation faced by Palestinian legal resistance aiming at ending it” (emphasis added). In a similar fashion, the NGO Kairos Palestine, which published the document, issued a statement in the midst of a terror wave against Israeli civilians in November 2015 declaring that “We are mourning all innocent victims of the recent weeks. Resistance is a right and a duty for Christians and all Palestinians. We clearly support this right to resist the prolonged occupation and aggressions by successive Israeli governments and hereby call for a resistance in the logic of love.”
Tellingly, the Kairos Palestine document discusses BDS in the same terms: “Palestinian civil organizations, as well as international organizations, NGOs and certain religious institutions call on individuals, companies and states to engage in divestment and in an economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the occupation. We understand this to integrate the logic of peaceful resistance” (emphasis added).
FIDH, Al-Haq, and Kairos Palestine are all funded by European governments. Government donors to FIDH include the EU, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Al-Haq is funded by the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (“IHL Secretariat” – joint funding from Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland), Norway, Ireland, and Belgium. Kairos Palestine is part of a German government funded development project, under the auspices of Ziviler Friedensdienst (ZFD, a funding program of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development), titled “Nonviolent Conflict Transformation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories” (2014-2017).
Glorifying Terrorism in the Name of Human Rights
In February 2017, NOVACT hosted Manal Tamimi and Munther Amira of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC) for a conference titled “Towards a new paradigm: Preventing Violent Extremism.” NOVACT later described the two as “Human Rights Defenders.”
The PSCC regularly organizes demonstrations that have often turned violent, and repeatedly employs “martyr” rhetoric and posts on its Twitter account photos of demonstrators hurling rocks.
Despite being invited as experts on “preventing violent extremism,” both Munther Amira and Manal Tamimi have made violent statements. In response to a violent demonstration in Bethlehem in December 2016, Munther Amira told Israeli media outlet Ynet: “we are here to protest and to say that the occupation and terror are two sides of the same coin. We want to tell the world that Palestinians deal with organized terror. We will continue to cope in order to struggle against the Nazi occupation” (NGO Monitor translation from the original Hebrew).
Tamimi frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media. In August 2015, Tamimi tweeted, “I do hate Israel ,i (sic) wish a thrid Intefada (sic) coming soon and people rais (sic) up and kills all these zionist settlers everywhere.” In September 2015, on Yom Kippur (a fast day and the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar), Tamimi tweeted: “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.”
For its part, the PSCC regularly organizes demonstrations that have often turned violent, and repeatedly employs “martyr” rhetoric and posts on its Twitter account photos of demonstrators hurling rocks.
PSCC issued a defense in Amira’s name, claiming that “‘the Zionists lobby attacked me and launched a terrorist alert after they issued a complaint to the Spanish police against me… I went to Barcelona unit to give a speech about BDS and popular resistance’” (emphasis added). Novact also promoted and endorsed this defense.
Novact additionally grants legitimacy to “resistance.” As part of a project titled “Observatory of Private Military Security Companies & Human Rights,” funded by the City Council of Barcelona and British NGO Oxford Research Group (ORG), Novact published a report in 2015 that states,
“Since the Declaration of the State of Israel in 1948, the Israeli government has used the pretext of security to justify the occupation of the Palestinian people, committing terrible atrocities and violating human rights …The Israeli notion of security is closely linked to their concept of terrorism, drawing an extremely thin line between terrorism and resistance. The right of the Palestinian people to resist Israeli military occupation is not only a moral right but also a recognized right under customary international law” (emphases added).
Separately, ORG published a strategy report under its project The Palestine Strategy Group, which supports “resistance in all its forms including the growing global movement for boycott sanctions and divestment” (emphasis added).
As noted, the conference organized by Novact and featuring PSCC was funded by the Spanish regional government of Catalonia and the EU. Novact, a regular partner of PSCC, received €1.3 million in 2015 from Spain, the UN, and the EU for activities related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ORG is likewise funded by European governments, and received ₤197,820 from Norway for “Israel and Palestine Projects” in 2015 (roughly 43% of ORG’s entire income for that year). Other donors include the EU, Switzerland, Germany (Institute for Foreign Relations), and Cordaid (the Netherlands).
This is not the only instance of European government funding to NGOs that explicitly glorify violence and terrorism. In a 2015 publication funded by the German political foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Palestinian NGO Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA) refers to stabbings that began in October 2015 as “a ‘youth uprising’ against settlers and the Israeli military forces in an individual, unplanned and spontaneous manner… The ‘youth uprising’ brought a new vision and mission to the concept of Palestinian steadfastness and resistance … Survival and resistance with self-confidence, courage and accepting the consequences of their actions against Israelis with a smile!” (emphasis added). Listing examples of the “Palestinian Youth Uprising,” the publication describes how “This generation threw stones, burned tires, attacked Israelis with knives, and were shot by live and rubber bullets” and refers to “Palestinian martyr, Baha Eleyan.” Eleyan was one of two terrorists to board a bus in Jerusalem in October 2015 armed with a gun and a knife, murdering three and injuring seven.
PASSIA is implementing a project “in partnership with the Open Regional Fund for the MENA region (ORFMENA) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH” (2015-2016). GIZ is a German “public-benefit federal enterprise” that provides “services worldwide in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development.”
Government Funded NGOs with Ties to the PFLP Terrorist Organization
In addition to the above examples, NGO Monitor research shows that several NGOs active in anti-Israel BDS and lawfare campaigns have links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. These NGOs receive significant funding from the EU and individual European governments1.
The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.Since its inception in 1967, the PFLP has been involved in suicide bombings, hijackings, assassinations, and other terrorist activities targeting civilians.
The NGO ties to the PFLP range from establishment and operation of NGOs by the PFLP itself to NGO officials and staffers being convicted of terrorism charges by Israeli courts. Some of these individuals have been denied entry and exit visas by Israeli (and Jordanian) authorities due to security concerns.
NGOs with ties to the PFLP involved in BDS and/or lawfare include Addameer, Al-Haq, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Stop the Wall, Health Work Committee (HWC), Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), Alternative Information Center (AIC), Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).
The most active of these NGOs are Addameer, Al-Haq (see above), and PCHR. Addameer refers to Palestinian prisoners convicted of security offenses as “political prisoners,” including those convicted of murder and attempted murder of Israeli civilians. PCHR consistently labels terrorist attacks as a part of the “legitimate right to resist the occupation”; in April 2016, founder and director of PCHR Raji Sourani declared that “I think resistance is our right and our obligation.”
The NGOs’ and/or their staffs’ affiliations with the PFLP should have at the very least raised red flags for donor governments. For instance, according to the exclusion criteria applicable for participation in procurement procedures of the EU’s Financial Regulation, “Candidates or tenderers shall be excluded from participation in procurement procedures if:…they or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of res judicata for…involvement in a criminal organization.” Cases of participation in a criminal organization include “cases of terrorist offences, offences linked to terrorist activities, and inciting, aiding, abetting or attempting to commit such offences” (Emphases added).
Donors to the PFLP-linked NGOs include the EU, the governments of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Norway, Ireland, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, and Switzerland, and the United Nations. Many of these governments have also stated that they do “not support any form of boycott or sanctions against Israel,” and that they are “opposed to boycotts of Israel.”
The following briefly summarizes NGOs’ ties to the PFLP (for full analysis of these ties see “The European-Funded NGO PFLP Network”), and provides details on some of their political activities.
Addameer
Addameer is a leader of campaigns in support of Palestinian prisoners convicted of security offenses, referring to them as “political prisoners” and altogether omitting the context of violence and terror. The organization focuses on lobbying international frameworks “to ask them to intervene to hold Israel accountable and pressure it to change its policies and practices.”
Addameer is very active in BDS campaigns, which it sees as part of its “struggle” against Israel. Addameer signed a “Joint Call to Action: July 2014 – Month against the Apartheid Wall,” stating, “.it is time for a ‘legal intifada’, an intensified popular struggle and more boycotts, divestment and sanctions. It is time for accountability. to overcome Israeli apartheid, colonialism and occupation. We ask you to expand and deepen the global BDS movement for justice…” (emphases added).
In a 2015 statement, Addameer accused Israel of “committing nothing short of a modern-day ethnic cleansing before our eyes… The time is more urgent than ever for the international community to hold Israel accountable for its recurring and blatant war crimes against Palestinians.” Addameer called “on ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to investigate these crimes in the preliminary investigation and to bring the accused to trial immediately.”
Addameer is an official PFLP “affiliate,” and several of the NGO’s employees were convicted of terrorism charges by Israeli courts. The NGO’s chairperson and co-founder, Abdul-latif Ghaith, was banned by Israel from travelling internationally due to his alleged membership in the PFLP, and Khalida Jarrar, Addameer’s vice-chairperson, is a senior PFLP official. In 2015, Jarrar was indicted for various offenses, including active membership in a terrorist organization (the PFLP) and inciting violence through a call to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Jarrar accepted a plea bargain and was reportedly convicted on “one count of belonging to an illegal organization and another of incitement” receiving a 15 month prison sentence with an additional 10 month suspended sentence. She was released from prison on June 3, 2016.
Al-Haq
Al-Haq describes itself as a prominent Palestinian human rights organization. The NGO is a leader of anti-Israel “lawfare” campaigns, including several cases in the UK, Canada, and other countries. Al-Haq also lobbies the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the prosecution of Israelis and is involved in BDS campaigns.
In November 2015, in the midst of a wave of terrorism against Israeli civilians, Al-Haq wrote a joint letter with the FIDH to the Foreign Ministers of EU Member States condemning Israel’s security responses, and calling for various sanctions against Israel. These included calls to “Suspend the Israel-EU Association Agreement…Take measures to ensure that European companies do not become involved in or benefit from violations of international law committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; Prohibit the import of settlement products in order to satisfy the legal obligation to take all available measures to end Israel unlawful behaviour and to not render aid in maintaining the unlawful; Recognise the need for EU member states to re-examine their policy on arms sales to Israel to comply with EU Common Position on arms transfer and the Arms Trade Treaty.”
In 2013, Al-Haq was part of a libelous campaign falsely suggesting that Israel steals water from Palestinians in order to interfere with cooperation between Dutch companies and the Israeli company Mekorot. In 2015, Al-Haq, along with other Palestinian NGOs including PCHR, delivered a “Submission to the International Criminal Court on Alleged Israeli, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity during 2014” Gaza war.
Al Haq’s General Director, Shawan Jabarin, has alleged ties to the PFLP terrorist organization and, as such, has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan. In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court stated that “…the petitioner [Shawan Jabarin] is a senior activist in the PFLP terror group… acting some of the time as the CEO of a human rights organization, and at other times as an activist in a terror organization which has not shied away from murder and attempted murder, which have nothing to do with rights…”
Al-Haq is a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), FIDH, Habitat International Coalition (HIC), and the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO).
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)
PCHR is a leader in the anti-Israel “lawfare” movement and has attempted to have Israelis arrested in England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, and New Zealand. The group has filed for punitive damages against Israeli officials and companies doing business with Israel in the US. All of PCHR’s cases have been dismissed in the preliminary stages. According to Raji Sourani “The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is rooted in the decades-old struggle for self-determination, the rule of law, and accountability.”
Raji Sourani, founder and director of the PCHR, was “prohibited from leaving Palestine (sic) from 1977 to 1990.” In an interview, Sourani admitted that he served “a three-year sentence [1979-1982] imposed by an Israeli court which convicted him of membership in the illegal Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.” Sourani was imprisoned an additional three times “in 1985 and 1986.” and held in administrative detention in 1988. From 1986 to 1987 he was “restricted from legal work for one year by an unprecedented Israeli military decision issued by the Israeli Military Governor.” He was also denied a US entry visa and was thus unable to travel to participate in the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) in 2012. In February 2014, the PFLP organized a ceremony in Gaza honoring Sourani for winning the “Alternative Noble Prize”; Dr. Rabah Muhana (see UHWC below), a member of the PFLP Political Bureau, delivered a speech at the prize ceremony.
PCHR is a partner of Spanish NGO Novact (see above), and one of FIDH’s 178 member organizations. Raji Sourani is also the Vice President of FIDH.
Stop the Wall (the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign)
Stop the Wall “has been the main national grassroots body mobilizing and organizing the collective efforts against the Apartheid Wall…” The NGO accuses Israel of “collective punishment,” “repression,” “restricting movement,” “water theft,” and a “ghettoization project.”
Stop the Wall is a leader in national and international BDS efforts, such as promoting military embargoes against Israel. The NGO has called for BDS measures against the Israeli security company Elbit for playing a “key role in the construction of the Wall and provid[ing] the drones used in ‘targeted assassinations,’” as well as against the Israeli state owned water company Mekorot for allegedly “implementing ‘water apartheid’ on Palestinians.” The French companies Veolia and Alstom have also been targeted by Stop the Wall for their alleged involvement in “actively supporting Israel’s colonial ambitions in Jerusalem…accomplice in Israel’s violations of international law and alleged war crimes.”
Salah Khawaja, a “leader” of Stop the Wall was “an active member of the blacklisted Popular Front Liberation Party.” He was arrested by Israeli security forces seven times between 1983 and 1992 and served five years in prison between 1992 and 1997. Khawaja was arrested again on October 26, 2016 and as of November 13, 2016 is still being held.
Health Workers Committee (HWC) and Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC)
Health Work Committee (HWC), Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC) are Palestinian health organizations that are active in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, respectively, that have each have a history of anti-Israel activities. Both organizations are signatory to the original 2005 Palestinian civil society BDS call, and to the 2007 “Palestinian Medical and Health Institutions Call for Imposing Measures against the Israel Medical Association.” In an open letter titled “Stop the Genocide,” written during the 2014 Gaza war, HWC alleged that, “The innocent citizens of the Gaza Strip have been facing terrifying genocide committed against them by the Israeli occupying forces.” The letter called for the “Palestinian Authority to submit lawsuits to international courts and organizations to bring criminal Zionists to trial.”
Several HWC and UHWC officials and staffers were PFLP activists, such as the late Dr. Ahmad Maslamani, co-founder of the Health Work Committees of the West Bank. Dr. Maslamani was a “Central Committee member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” (as stated by the PFLP itself). Dr. Rabah Muhanna, “member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP and leader of its branch in Gaza” was head of the UHWC (2001) and was one of the organizations founders. HWC’s Youth Development Program, “A community, cultural, and social development program that provide services to Jerusalemite youth through ‘Nidal Center’ in the old city of Jerusalem,” was closed by Israeli authorities from 2009 to 2012 due to its ties to the PFLP. In 2016, the Israeli High Court of Justice convicted Daoud al-Ghoul, director of youth programs for the Health Work Committees in Jerusalem, for being a PFLP member [19274-07-15]. Their verdict stated that: “… On 09/06/15 the defense minister announced that the association [‘Health union committees – Jerusalem’] is an unlawful association…”
Alternative Information Center
The Alternative Information Center (AIC) is a radical political organization founded “by Palestinian and Israeli grassroots activists as a binational organisation to promote the human and national rights of the Palestinian people.” Co-founder of AIC, Michael Warschawski, asserts that “one has to unequivocally reject the very idea (and existence) of a Jewish state, whatever will be its borders.” (The Haifa Conference for the Right of Return, June 2008).
AIC supports a so-called “right of resistance,” stating that, “The Palestinian leadership must stop and consider the results of the peace process, a 15 year long negotiation and the situation got worse. Only the choice of resistance can put an end to the occupation.”
AIC is a registered Israeli NGO, and in 2016 the Israeli Registrar of Non Profits requested that the organization be served a liquidation order by the court due to it “operating illegally, in violation of its declared objectives and statutes.”
AIC co-founder Michael Warschawski was jailed in the 1990s for publishing an informational pamphlet for the PFLP terror group (verdict on file). The co-director of AIC, Nassar Ibrahim, is also the former editor of El Hadaf – the PFLP’s weekly publication. Rifat Odeh Kassis, AIC Board of Directors member (2008), has links to multiple NGOs with PFLP ties and was arrested and imprisoned several times by Israel. He is also the founder of DCI-P (see below).
Rifat Odeh Kassis also serves as the General Coordinator and Spokesperson for Kairos Palestine (see above), which characterizes terrorism against Israeli citizensas “legal resistance”: “Some (Palestinian) political parties followed the way of armed resistance. Israel used this as a pretext to accuse the Palestinians of being terrorists and was able to distort the real nature of the conflict, presenting it as an Israeli war against terror, rather than an Israeli occupation faced by Palestinian legal resistance aiming at ending it.” [emphasis added.]
Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P)
Defense for the Children International – Palestine’s mission is, “Promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as other international, regional, and local standards.” DCI-P, however, frequently publishes false and unverifiable information and accusations regarding alleged “child abuse” by Israeli security forces in its reports.
Several DCI-P board members have apparent ties to the PFLP. Mahmoud Jiddah, reportedly a “PFLP member,” was imprisoned by Israel for 17 years for carrying out “grenade attacks” against Israeli civilians in Jerusalem in 1968. Hassan Abed Aljawad is similarly described as a Bethlehem-based “PFLP activist,” and “leader,” who represents the PFLP at public events. From 2007 to 2014, Shawan Jabarin – an alleged PFLP activist and director of Al-Haq (see above) – was a member of DCI-P’s Board of Directors. Alleged PFLP affiliate Nassar Ibrahim (see above) was also a member of DCI-P’s Board of Directors.
Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC)
The Union of Agricultural Work Committees describes itself as a “non-profit organization by a group of volunteers and agronomists” In practice, the organization utilizes highly biased and demonizing rhetoric against Israel.
Together with other NGOs, including Addameer (see above), UAWC signed on a “Joint Call to Action: July 2014 – Month against the Apartheid Wall,” stating that “it is time for a ‘legal intifada’, an intensified popular struggle and more boycotts, divestment and sanctions. It is time for accountability…to overcome Israeli apartheid, colonialism and occupation. We ask you to expand and deepen the global BDS movement for justice.”
UAWC is identified by Fatah as an official PFLP “affiliate,” and by USAID as the “agricultural arm” of the PFLP. According to academic scholar Glenn E. Robinson, UAWC was founded in 1986 by “agronomists loosely affiliated with the PFLP.”
UAWC organized “a solidarity day with the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Saadat.” The “solidarity day” featured Muhammad Bakri, executive director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Gaza, and celebrated “the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi” (an attack perpetrated by the PFLP). Bashir al Khairi, former President of the UAWC board of trustees, “was convicted of terrorist offences in 1969 and gaoled for 15 years.” Khairi was the head of the PFLP political bureau. Abdul Razeq Farraj, UAWC’s Director of Finance & Administration, has been arrested by Israel six times since 1985, with his last Administrative detention being in 2014. According to a HCJ decision from 2003, the evidence tying Farraj to the PFLP is “highly reliable.”
Footnotes
- For NGO Monitor’s full analysis of European funded NGOs with ties to the PFLP see: “The European-Funded NGO PFLP Network.”
In the Media
- European States Finance NGOs Supporting Terror Against Israel Steve Emerson, Newsmax