14 July 2005:
NGOs Behind Anti-Israel Divestment Campaign

Click here for printer friendly version

The divestment campaign has become the latest political instrument of the drive designed to progressively delegitimize Israel in international frameworks based on the 2001 "Durban strategy". This campaign is being conducted by Protestant Church groups, such as the World Council of Churches, the Presbyterians, the Anglican Church, and the UCC.

As in the Durban conference itself, as well as the university boycott efforts in the UK, the NGO network is playing a central role in this divestment movement. Groups such as Sabeel, a radical Palestinian religio-political organization supported by groups such as the Mennonite Central Committee, have provided the allegations and language repeated in many of the divestment declarations issued by church associations.

Indeed, divestment has been a core theme in the radical anti-Israel activities of NGOs claiming to promote human rights and assistance for the Palestinians, as profiled previously by NGO Monitor. These include Ittajah, BADIL, Al-Mezan, the Arab Association for Human Rights, Nazareth (HRA), ADRID, MIFTAH, along with others. The long list of extremist Palestinian NGOs involved in the divestment campaign was published on Electronic Intifada, which also disclosed that the campaign was timed to coincide with the "one year" anniversary of the ICJ "advisory decision" on Israel's separation barrier. In other words, the UN General Assembly vote, which was also led by the NGO network, was a means to the pseudo-legal ICJ process, which, in turn, is being used to drive the political boycott and divestment campaigns.

The funding for these political NGOs spear-heading the anti-Israel divestment campaign comes from a variety of sources: church groups in Europe and North America (including the Mennonite Central Committee and Christian Aid), government aid agencies (including Canada, Norway, Switzerland and the EU), and foundations (such as the New Israel Fund and the Ford Foundation).These groups continue to exploit claims of support for civil society and human rights in order to further narrow political objectives.