Ramallah, occupied West Financial institution – The Dutch authorities has stated it should now not fund one of many six main civil society and human rights organisations in Palestine which Israel banned as “terrorist teams” in October 2021.
In a statement denouncing Wednesday’s determination, the Ramallah-based Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) – for which the Dutch authorities has been the lead donor since 2013 – stated “that is the primary time a authorities ends its funding for Palestinian civil society primarily based on political conditionality”.
The UAWC offers hands-on help to Palestinians, together with by rehabilitating land susceptible to confiscation by Israel. It helps tens of 1000’s of farmers in Space C – the greater than 60 % of the occupied West Financial institution below direct Israeli army management, and the place most unlawful Israeli settlements and their infrastructure are situated.
The group stated it might take into account authorized steps to problem the Dutch authorities’s “dangerous and unfair determination”, which, it warned, was “more likely to resonate far past our organisation”.
In October 2021, Israel banned six organisations as “terrorist teams” below the pretext that they’re affiliated with the left-wing In style Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The transfer was extensively condemned by the worldwide group and rights teams as “unjustified” and “baseless” because the Israeli authorities has offered no proof (PDF) to substantiate its claims.
Israel’s designation tied the six organisations to the armed wing of the PFLP, which was lively as an organised physique within the second Intifada (2000-2005) when it carried out assaults towards Israeli civilian and army targets.
5 of the organisations are Palestinian: the Addameer prisoners’ rights group; Al-Haq rights group; the Union of Palestinian Ladies’s Committees (UPWC); the Bisan Middle for Analysis and Growth; and the UAWC. The sixth is the Palestine chapter of the Geneva-based Defence for Youngsters Worldwide organisation.
Exterior evaluate
The Dutch authorities’s determination adopted an 18-month suspension of funding to the UAWC.
In July 2020, the Dutch ministry for overseas commerce and growth cooperation had ordered a evaluate following the arrest of two Palestinian workers of the organisation. The now-former workers had been accused by Israel of being accountable for an August 2019 roadside bomb assault that killed a 17-year-old Israeli woman close to the unlawful Israeli settlement of Dolev within the occupied West Financial institution.
The investigation, performed by the Netherlands-based Proximities Danger Consultancy group, started in February 2021 and coated the interval between 2007 and 2020, throughout which the UAWC obtained Dutch funding. Its findings had been offered on Wednesday on the Dutch parliament.
Whereas the exterior evaluate stated the 2 former workers had “obtained a part of their salaries from the Dutch-funded overhead prices,” no proof of monetary flows between the UAWC and the PFLP, nor hyperlinks between the UAWC and the PFLP’s armed wing. The investigation additionally stated no proof was discovered of workers or board members having used their positions within the organisation to organise armed assaults.
“Nor has any proof been discovered of organisational unity between the UAWC and the PFLP or of the PFLP’s offering course to the UAWC,” the evaluate stated, solely discovering ties with the political and civic arms of the PFLP “on the particular person stage between UAWC workers and board members and the PFLP.”
“Proximities states that the UAWC couldn’t be anticipated to concentrate on people’ hyperlinks with the PFLP,” the evaluate continues.
‘Extremely political’
In its Wednesday assertion, the UAWC stated the Dutch authorities’s “stunning and deeply troubling” determination was “primarily based on various “particular person hyperlinks” that Proximities recognized – alleged connections in personal capability of board and workers members of UAWC with the PFLP”.
Stressing that it “can not (and doesn’t wish to) intrude with the private political views and affiliations of its workers and board members”, the UAWC stated the choice legitimised and inspired “the Israeli tactic of attacking Palestinian NGOs” via alleged political hyperlinks of the folks working for them.
“All of that is diverting worldwide consideration from Israel’s theft and confiscation of extra Palestinian land and its brutal suppression of the Palestinian folks dwelling below army occupation,” the UAWC stated.
Martin Konecny, director of the Belgium-based European Center East Venture, described the Dutch transfer as “extremely political” and “not primarily based on authorized grounds & anti-terror necessities”. He stated the evaluate counters many of the Israeli authorities’s claims.
Since 1967, Israel has banned greater than 400 native Palestinian and worldwide organisations as being “hostile” or “illegal”, together with all main Palestinian political events, such because the Palestinian Authority’s governing Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Group (PLO), with which Israel signed the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Israeli authorities have additionally slapped these designations onto dozens of charities and media shops in Palestine, and used them to raid their places of work, situation orders to close them down, to hold out arrests and detain folks, and to often strive folks for work exercising fundamental civil rights and for criticising the Israeli occupation, thought of unlawful below worldwide legislation.