Gerald Steinberg,
founder and president of NGO Monitor, a policy analysis think tank focusing on
non-governmental organizations, spoke to participants in a June 8 Middle East
Forum webinar (Click on video) about the European Union's funding of
Palestinian NGOs affiliated to terrorist organizations.
The EU grants around two to three billion Euros a year to hundreds
of NGOs around the world, of which at least 150 million Euros is allocated for
humanitarian aid. NGO Monitor's investigations reveal that over the last seven
years at least 25 million Euros have gone to Palestinian groups affiliated with
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an organization
designated as a terrorist group by the European Union.
Steinberg
highlighted three examples of NGOs funded by both the EU and EU member governments
that have ties to the PFLP:
Al-Haq, an NGO
ostensibly dedicated to documenting human rights violations, is led by Shawan
Jabarin, who was convicted by Israel's High Court in the 1980s of being a
member of the PFLP and subsequently was prohibited from traveling abroad based
on evidence he was recruiting for the PFLP.
Defense for Children
International Palestine (DCI-P), a local branch of the Geneva-based Defense for
Children International, is closely associated with the PFLP. At least three
figures with alleged ties to PFLP have been employed or appointed as board
members by DCI-P.
The Union of
Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) was identified in a USAID report as the
"agricultural arm of the PFLP." UAWC personnel with ties to the PFLP
include an accountant who negotiated funding from the European Union and an
administrative manager, both of whom are currently under indictment for the
August 2019 murder of 17-year-old Israeli Rina Shnerb.
Last year, the EU
introduced a provision into its grant agreements designed to ensure that
entities on the EU's terrorism blacklist, known as a "restrictive
list," don't benefit from EU funds. This caused an uproar among
Palestinians. The Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), which represents the above
groups and many others with dubious affiliations, "went to the European
Union office that's in charge of relations with the Palestinians and said, 'We
have totally opposed this. We won't let you. We refuse to allow you to apply
this regulation to the funding that we're getting'."
EU officials soon
backed down. In March 2020, the EU's representative to the Palestinians, Sven
Kȕhn von Burgsdorff, issued a clarification letter saying, "it is
understood that a natural person affiliated to, sympathizing with, or supporting
any of the groups or entities mentioned in the EU restrictive lists is not
excluded from benefiting from EU-funded activities, unless his/her exact name
and surname (confirming his/her identity) corresponds to any of the natural
persons on the EU restrictive lists."
In plainer English,
said Steinberg, this means Shawan Jabarin and other PFLP members who pose as
"human rights defenders" are allowed to benefit from EU funding so
long as their individual names are not on the EU blacklist, which it so happens
does not list any individuals (i.e. "natural persons"). Von
Burgsdorff's letter assures Palestinian NGOs that affiliates connected to
EU-designated terrorist groups like the PFLP not only can continue to receive
EU funding but are now afforded "legitimacy" by Brussels.
The Israeli
government contested this dodge and continues to insist that the Europeans end
funding "that can be readily siphoned off to the terrorist organizations
like the PFLP," explained Steinberg. "The European commissioner in charge
of relations with Israel ... said, 'We're going to investigate this.' Now we're
going to see if there's going to be an investigation or not. There may. That's
why I leave the question, did the European Union go to sleep or not?"
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