EU, European Governments Funding Terror-Linked Palestinian NGOs, Says Watchdog

EU, European Governments Funding Terror-Linked Palestinian NGOs, Says Watchdog

The European Union and European governments are funding several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) linked to a Palestinian terrorist group, the watchdog NGO Monitor disclosed.

The research done by the Jerusalem-based watchdog group exposed eight NGOs as having operational ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S. and EU-designated terrorist group.

Revealing large-scale foreign founding for these terror-linked groups, NGO Monitor reported: “[S]taff members, founders, board members, general assembly members, and senior staff members from a number of NGOs have ties to the PFLP terror group. Some of these individuals are employed in financial positions at the NGOs, calling into question funding oversight by the EU, the UN, European governments and other donors, and increasing the risk of diversion of public funds to an internationally designated terrorist group.”

“[T]he Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Norway, and Belgium funneled millions of dollars to the Palestinian groups,” the Jerusalem Post reported citing NGO Monitor’s findings.

In a statement released this week, the NGO Monitor named the charities and human rights groups acting as a front for the PFLP terrorist group:

NGO Monitor has published a series of reports detailing 8 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. These include Addameer, Al-Dameer, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Health Work Committees (HWC), Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), and Union of Palestinian Women Committees (UPWC). The following introduction provides a detailed overview of the PFLP terrorist organization’s institutional links to Palestinian civil society groups. (…)

Founded by George Habash in 1967, the PFLP is a Palestinian, secular, Marxist-Leninist terror group, originally supported by the Soviet Union and China. The PFLP is designated as a terrorist organization by governments around the world, including the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.

Since its inception, the terror group has been involved in suicide bombings, shootings, and assassinations, among other attacks targeting civilians. The group was well-known for hijacking commercial airlines in the 1960s and 1970s, involving thousands of civilians in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and is responsible for countless deaths and injuries. (…)

Another way the PFLP attempts to gain legitimacy is by co-opting the discourse of human rights and international law. The terrorist group gains a “halo,” where outside observers associate the terror group with positive progressive values instead of violence. Moreover, the rights-based rhetoric serves to justify attacks against civilians, obscuring of its ultimate goal – i.e. the elimination of Israel.

For example, one of the pillars of the PFLP platform is “Defense of human rights and the struggle for the release of prisoners and political prisoners.” Notably, for the PFLP, “human rights” is consistent with referring to terrorists as “political prisoners.” Other pillars speak of the importance of Palestinian youth, alongside “stepping up the development of forms of revolutionary violence against the Zionist enemy.”

“A new report by @NGOMonitor finds that eight Palestinian NGOs have links to the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” Funded by #Netherlands, #Switzerland, #Spain, #Germany, #France, #Ireland, #Norway, #Belgium etc https://t.co/NADwEAADO9

— Prof Gerald M Steinberg (@GeraldNGOM) January 27, 2020

The PFLP is not the only terrorist organization carrying out activities under the garb of European and Western-funded NGOs. The Islamist terror group Hamas is also running NGOs. Some of the convicted terrorists working for Palestinian NGOs include PFLP hijacker Leila Khaled, convicted PFLP terrorist Shawan Jabarin, “former” top Hamas operative Muhammad Sawalha.

Israel has repeatedly requested the EU and European governments to stop funding NGOs linked to terrorist groups. In early January, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan wrote a letter to the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, urging him to “cease funding” to entities “affiliated with terrorist groups.”

European governments, especially Germany, are among the top patrons for the Palestinian NGOs, many of them affiliated with terrorist groups and openly inciting hate and violence against Jews and the State of Israel, the research shows.

“The German federal government provides millions of euros to political advocacy NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, through a variety of frameworks,” NGO Monitor reported in a November 2019 study. “German federal funding is allocated to, among others, organizations that promote anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) and ‘lawfare’ campaigns, anti-Zionism, a ‘one-state’ vision, antisemitism, and violence.”

With Egypt and Arab Gulf state abandoning the terror-ridden “Palestinian cause,” as evident by their response to President Donald Trump’s peace plan, Europe is emerging as the biggest sponsor of Palestinian institutions and groups, most of them intimately tied to Islamic and Arab terrorist groups. Europe’s open borders policy has already opened up the continent to the activities of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Mosques in Germany are being used for recruitment and fundraising for Hezbollah, German intelligence agency BfV recently revealed. It can not be in Europe’s self-interest to keep rearing these Arab and Islamic terrorist outfits and their front groups.

The Links between pro-BDS groups and terrorist organizations

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