Activity

• The Swedish government funds numerous Israeli, Palestinian, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Embassy in Tel Aviv, and indirectly by outsourcing to Swedish church groups and aid organizations such as Diakonia.
• In 2021, Sweden provided approximately $20.8 million to NGOs involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many of these NGOs and church aid organizations are involved in anti-peace activities such as incitement, BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions), and legal attacks (“lawfare”) against Israel. Some of these groups also have reported ties to terrorist organizations.
• In August 2018, OmVärlden, an online magazine owned by Sida, published 20 articles making numerous false accusations about NGO Monitor. The articles consisted almost entirely of innuendo, factual inaccuracies, and antisemitic motifs reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (spider web, conspiracy theories).
• Sida paid $66,490 in 2014-2016 for an evaluation, “Research to better promote human rights in Israel/Palestine.” The evaluation was written by Jessica Montell, a member of the Secretariat’s Reference Group and, at the time former executive director of a Sida-funded NGO (B’Tselem). The Swedish government failed to respond to NGO Monitor’s concerns about conflicts of interest in this evaluation.

Direct Funding

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) Funding to Palestinian NGOs

• Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS)
  • In 2020-2024, Sida has committed $2 million to PMRS.
  • PMRS rhetoric includes accusations of “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” and “war crimes.”
  • PMRS is a signatory to a multiple BDS initiatives and has organized BDS conferences.
  • PMRS runs “Palestine Monitor,” an “independent news website” that has featured virulently antisemitic cartoons that trivialize the Holocaust; depict of a pile of emaciated dead bodies in striped uniforms under the caption “Gaza”; featuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stamping Palestinian babies with the word “terrorist,” as they are transported on a conveyer belt into a smoking oven; and of an elderly Palestinian woman with a blood-dripping “1948” tattooed on her arm, invoking the numbers that were tattooed on the arms of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps.
• Health Work Committees
  • In 2017-2019, HWC received $3.6 million from Sida.
  • HWC received SEK 2.1 million (2015-2017) from Individuell Människohjälp (IM) for a similar project (see “indirect funding” below).
  • HWC is the West Bank and Jerusalem spinoff of Union of Health Workers Committees (UHWC), a Gaza-based NGO identified by Fatah as a PFLP “affiliate” and by USAID-engaged audit as “the PFLP’s health organization.” The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
  • HWC’s Youth Development Program, “A community, cultural, and social development program that provide services to Jerusalemite youth through ‘Nidal Center,’” served as “a place of action of the [PFLP] organization.” As a result of these ties to the PFLP, the Center was closed by Israeli authorities from 2009 to 2012. In 2015, Israeli authorities closed an HWC center in Shufat for one year. The decision states that the decision was made to raid and close the center “[u]nder the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1948 and after the conviction that this place is used in terrorist activities.”
  • In October 2019, Waleed Hanatsheh, HWC’s finance and administration manager, was arrested as part of a terror cell that carried out a bombing against Israeli civilians, murdering 17-year old Rina Shnerb, and injuring her father and brother.
• Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR)
  • In 2021-2022, Sida granted $932,738 to the Independent Commission for Human Rights.
  • ICHR was established by former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. While purporting to be an National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) that monitors PA compliance with human rights standards, ICHR also serves as a vehicle to produce and promote PLO political propaganda.
  • ICHR regularly collaborates with and has demonstrated its support for EU, US, Canada and Israel-designated terror groups, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
• Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP)
  • GCMHP received $3.7 million (2015-2019) from Sida.
  • GCMHP uses unsubstantiated medical claims as an avenue to criticize the Israeli government, including allegations that the Jewish state engages in “collective punishment,” “massacres,” and “war crimes.”

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) Funding to International NGOs

• Islamic Relief Sweden
  • In 2017-2021 Islamic Relief Sweden received $1.8 million from Sida.
  • Islamic Relief Sweden also received $3 million in Sida funding indirectly through Forum Syd (see below).
  • Islamic Relief Sweden is part of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) and was founded by The Islamic Association in Sweden.
  • On June 19, 2014, Israel’s Defense Minister declared IRW to be illegal, based on its alleged role in funneling money to Hamas, and banned it from operating in Israel and the West Bank. Hamas is a designated terror organization by Israel, the US, EU, and Canada. According to media reports, the decision was made after “the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the coordinator for government activities in the territories, and legal authorities provided incriminating information against IRW.”
  • In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates banned IRW as a terror organization.
  • In January 2016, HSBC Banking group in the UK severed ties with IRW over terror funding fears.
• Save the Children
  • The Swedish government committed $3.8 million to Save the Children for a (2017-2022) West Bank and Gaza project.
  • On May 18, 2018, the Swedish government, together with Save the Children and Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution (PCDCR), sponsored a workshop at the Dar al Huda kindergarten, “Training of Teachers on Positive Discipline in Everyday Teaching.”
    • The Dur al Huda kindergarten has a history of anti-Israel activity, On May 26, 2018, the Dar al Huda kindergarten in Gaza held a graduation ceremony that included the mock killing and kidnapping of Israelis by children dressed as combatants. The simulation included sophisticated equipment such as drones, body cameras, military fatigues, body armor, and sniper camouflage. Children wore headbands representing Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), designated as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and others.
    • According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Dar al Huda held similarly exploitative military-style events in 2017 and 2016.
  • Save the Children works with local NGO partners. For example, it funds a project called “Child’s rights and Child Protection in OPT” with a budget of SEK 33.6 million for 2017-2021. Implementing partners and organizations are unclear. However, a similarly named 2015 project (SEK 6 million) lists implementing organizations as: Al Mezan, Al Dameer, PYALARA, Independent Commission for Human Rights, and Sawa; partners are Defence for Children International – Palestine, Al Mezan, Juzoor Foundation for Health & Social Development, Aisha, Palestinian Counselling Center, and Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution.
• Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI)
  • In 2021-2022, the Swedish Mission Council (via SIDA) allocated $2.1 million for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).”
  • EAPPI sends volunteers to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation.” Upon completion of the program, the volunteers return to their home countries and churches where many engage in inflammatory anti-Israel, and at times antisemetic, rhetoric and advocacy, including advocating for BDS campaigns in churches, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany, and other delegitimization strategies.
  • Sweden sends about 20 participants on the EAPPI program annually. Upon returning to Sweden, many EAPPI activists use their experience in the West Bank to promote anti-Israel campaigns, including BDS.
• Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
  • In 2021-2025, NRC is receiving multiple grants amounting to $2.1 million for projects in the West Bank and Gaza.
  • One of NRC’s principal projects in Israel, “Information, counseling, and legal assistance (ICLA),” exploits judicial frameworks to manipulate Israeli policy, bypassing democratic frameworks.
    • In 2017, ICLA’s “beneficiary targets” included “3628 opened and continuing cases for legal assistance in the West Bank (West Bank 612 new and 3016 continuing),” as well as “40 advocacy briefings given on specific HLP [Housing, Land, and Property] and residency issues (verbal or written), 10 of instances information is submitted to other UN mechanisms, and 75 public interest cases challenging unjust HLP issues.
    • NRC also leads the “Legal Task Force,” a UN-OCHA organized mechanism, which coordinates legal responses by 14 Palestinian, Israeli, and international NGOs. An NRC funding appeal notes a close relationship with the PA, explaining that “Legal aid interventions will be coordinated with the PA thru the Legal Task Force” (emphasis added).
    • A lawyer affiliated with the NRC program stated that the objective of these cases are an attempt to “try every possible legal measure to disrupt the Israeli judicial system… as many cases as possible are registered and that as many cases as possible are appealed to increase the workload of the courts and the Supreme Court to such an extent that there will be a blockage” (emphasis added).
  • In April 2018, NRC contractor Yasser Murtaja was killed in the violence on the Gaza border. An NRC statement notes, “Yasser Murtaja…had agreed to document for NRC the bitter prolonged struggle faced by Palestinian refugees in Gaza. The work was planned to start the day after he was killed.” Israeli officials accused Murtaja of being a Hamas activist.
• European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
  • ECFR received $368 222 in 2018-2019 from Sida.
  • ECFR has been one of the leading BDS advocates in Europe under the guise of a so-called “differentiation” policy. Under differentiation, ECFR lobbies the EU and European governments to adopt policies that promote silent boycott and divestment of any business activities supposedly related to Israeli “settlements built on occupied territory” on the false basis that such activities violate international law and the “domestic legal order.”
  • In December 2019, the Jerusalem Post published an article exposing that while ECFR accepts donations from donors who do business in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus, it pushes for the EU and European governments to adopt policies that promote silent boycott and divestment of any business activities supposedly related to Israeli “settlements built on occupied territory.” This reflects ECFR’s non-objective standards which single out Israel while ignoring comparable conflict situations.

Sida Funding to NGOs Active in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Funding through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

• In 2022, the Swedish MFA granted NIS 197,848 to Yesh Din.
  • Yesh Din regularly petitions the Israeli High Court of Justice and engages in advocacy, including briefings to foreign diplomats, to alter what it labels as “discriminatory” policies.
  • The activities of Yesh Din are central to promoting the claim that investigative systems and courts in Israel are unable or unwilling to investigate allegations of wrongdoing. This campaign is part of a broader “legal warfare” strategy, of pushing “war crimes” cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC), and using poor information and convoluted statistics to advance political claims.
• In 2021, the Swedish MFA granted NIS 443,760 to Ir Amim.
  • Although Ir Amim has been described as “work[ing] toward coexistence in Jerusalem,” an Ir Amim official was quoted as saying that the group was “seeking to advance a political agenda, and was not an organization geared to promote coexistence.”
  • Ir Amim frequently accuses Israel of attempting to “Judaize” Jerusalem and promotes the Palestinian narrative on the city, including claims that “government powers are being handed over to the settler organizations” and archeological digs have become an important “tool in the fight for control” over Jerusalem.
• In 2020, the Swedish MFA granted NIS 183,174 to Terrestrial Jerusalem.
  • Promotes a one-sided approach to the conflict, placing sole blame for the failure of the peace process on Israel. The complexities of the situation in Jerusalem are erased, including illegal building and crime in Palestinian neighborhoods, damage to the Temple Mount as a result of illegal digging by the Waqf, and incitement to violence against Jews by extremist clerics.

MFA Funding to NGOs

Indirect Funding

• NGO Development Center (NDC)
  • In 2020-2024, Sida committed $8 million to NDC’s Human Rights Programme.  According to the NDC, its Human Rights Fund Programme is guided primarily by Sweden’s development Cooperation Strategy for Palestine and “provide[s] core support to organisations that can demonstrate having the competence and capacity to contribute to real and sustainable change towards achieving the overall objective of the programme.”
  • The NGOs receiving Swedish funding through the NDC are Al Mezan Al-Haq, Badil, Defence for Children – Palestine (DCI-P), Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Gisha, and Yesh Din.
  • NDC “facilitated” and funded the “Palestinian NGO Code of Conduct,” which demands that Palestinian groups reject “any normalization activities with the occupier, neither at the political-security nor the cultural or developmental levels.”
• Diakonia
  • According to Sida’s CSO Database, Diakonia is receiving multiple grants amounting to $1.3 million (2021-2025) for projects in the West Bank and Gaza.
  • Diakonia frequently exploits international legal rhetoric to demonize Israel. Its “International Humanitarian Law” (IHL) program promotes anti-Israel lawfare campaigns and a narrative based on Palestinian victimization.
    • For years, Diakonia did not conduct similar types of programs in terms of content or resources in any other conflict region in the world.
  • Diakonia promotes BDS, demanding that the international community “seriously consider restrictive and other measures against in Israel” by “exerting diplomatic pressure, taking lawful countermeasures and refusing arms transfers.”
  • In addition to its own activities, Diakonia funds some of the most highly biased and politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict including:  Alternative Information Center (AIC), Sabeel, Al-Haq, Al Mezan, BADIL,  Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), and Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS). Several of these NGOs are linked to the PFLP and/or promote extreme antisemitic content, advocate for BDS, and reject a two-state framework. (See table below for further funding information.)
    • In 2016-2019, Diakonia provided SEK 1.6 million the Palestinian NGO Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC). In May 2017, WATC inaugurated a youth center in the village of Burqa named after Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who in 1978 murdered 37 civilians, including 12 children. Diakonia defended WATC’s participation in naming the center, claiming that “WATC has requested that its logo be removed from the center.” Despite this claim, WATC was present at the center’s inauguration and posted photos of the inauguration.
• Kvinna Till Kvinna (KTK)
  • Kvinna Till Kvinna received multiple grants amounting to $630,531 (2019-2023) from Sida.
  • KtK funds numerous NGOs that support BDS initiatives through participation in activities and events, signing of petitions and initiatives, and/or membership in BDS platforms. NGOs include Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP), Palestinian Center for Peace and Democracy (PCPD), The Palestinian Working Women Society for Development (PWWSD), Women’s Affairs Center, Women’s Studies Center, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
  • KTK funds the Gun Free Kitchen Tables project of the Isha L’Isha Feminist Center. According to GFKT, the project “works to stem and reverse small arms proliferation, to advance gun control across the board…” in Israel.
    • GFKT English page also reveals the group’s overt political orientation, explaining that “we also subvert basic principles of the endemic, masculinized militarization dominating government policies in Israel and underpinning the continued occupation of territories conquered in 1967.”
    • In November 2018, GFKT petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice against new criteria for obtaining a civilian and organizational firearms licenses. The petition ignores that the criteria were eased in 2016 for defensive purposes following a sharp increase in violent stabbing attacks targeting Israeli citizens.
  • A 2013¹ Sida evaluation of KtK states, “KtK is vocal in its denouncing of so called Normalisation of the relationship between Israel and the occupied Palestinians and support Women’s organisations with a clear Anti-occupation profile such as women (and their families) bereaved through martyrdom or jailing due to opposition to the occupation forces.”
• Oxfam
  • In 2021-2025, Oxfam is receiving $291,485 from Sweden.
  • Oxfam consistently paints a highly misleading picture of the Arab-Israeli conflict, departing from its humanitarian mission focused on poverty. Most Oxfam statements erase all complexity and blame Israel exclusively for the situation, and these distortions and their impacts contribute significantly to the conflict.
  • In March 2020, following criticism, Oxfam apologized for raising funds by selling copies of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a fabricated text that proclaimed an international Jewish conspiracy bent on world domination and accuses the Jews of controlling government, the economy, media and public institutions
• Forum Syd
  • Forum Syd received grants totalling $813,503 (2018-2022) from Sida.
  • In 2017-2018, Forum Syd granted SEK 1.2 million to Palestine Solidarity (Palestinagrupperna i Sverige – PGS).
    • The project aims to lobby the Swedish government and “increase knowledge about Sweden’s official positions on the Palestine-Israel conflict, as well as Sweden’s support for Palestine in the form of development aid.”
    • PGS provides funding to Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) and Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), ActiveStills and Worker’s Action Centre-Maan.
• We Effect (formerly Swedish Cooperative Centre)
  • We Effect received grants totaling $6 million (2020-2023)  from Sida for Climate Justice Program Palestine 2020-2023.
  • We Effect’s project expenses in the West Bank and Gaza was SEK 6.1 million in 2018 and SEK 10.1 in 2017.
  • We Effect partners with Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ), for its joint program aimed “at ‘Improving Good Governance Practices among Palestinian Cooperatives and Community Based Organization (CBOs).’”
• The Olof Palme International Center
  • The Olof Palme International Center received grants totalling over $1.5 million (2020-2024) from Sida for projects in “Palestinian Territory, Occupied.”
  • The Olof Palme Center partners with PYALARA – The Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation among others. It does not reveal funding to these organizations.

Indirect Swedish Funding to NGOs Active in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Funding via the United Nations

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the occupied Palestinian territory

• In 2017-2020, Sweden budgeted $11.4 million to OHCHR for projects in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Sweden does not reveal what are these projects.
• In February 2020, OHCHR published a discriminatory blacklist of entities allegedly conducting activities in areas over the 1949 Armistice line. The database aimed at economically damaging companies that are owned by Jews or do business with Israel, and is ultimately meant to harm the Jewish state.

UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FOA)

• Sweden provided $34,978 in 2021 to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FOA).
• According to FOA, implementing partners include the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).
  • The Union of Agricultural Work Committee (UAWC) is identified by Fatah as an official “affiliate” and by USAID-engaged audit as the “agricultural arm” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. (For more information on UAWC’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Union of Agricultural Work Committees Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”)
  • Samer Arbid, UAWC’s accountant from 2016 until his arrest in 2019, was indicted on 21 counts of terror-related offenses including murder and is currently standing trial. According to the indictment, he commanded a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror cell that carried out a bombing against Israeli civilians, murdering 17-year old Rina Shnerb, and injuring her father and brother. According to the Israel Security Agency (Shabak), Arbid prepared and detonated the explosive device.

UNICEF

• In 2018-2022, Sweden provided UNICEF with $919,981 “for UNICEF work on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).”
• UNICEF spearheads a campaign to have Israel included on a UN blacklist of “grave” violators of children’s rights. The list appears as an annex to the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC). This political agenda is a primary facet of UNICEF’s activities relating to Israel, completely inconsistent with its mandate of “child protection” and from its guidelines for neutrality and impartiality. (Read NGO Monitor’s report “UNICEF and its NGO Working Group: Failing Children.”)

UN Women

• In 2021-2022, Sweden granted $1.2 million to UN Women to “to strengthen the opportunities for women in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine.”
• According to UN Women, members of its “Civil Society Advisory Group” include representatives from numerous NGOs involved in delegitimization and/or BDS campaigns against Israel, including Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), Al-Haq, PYALARA, and Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA). It is unknown if the Swedish grant is being carried out with any of these or other organizations.

Swedish Funding to the UN