Yesh Din- Volunteers for Human Rights
Profile
Country/Territory | Israel |
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Website | www.yesh-din.org |
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Founded | March 2005, by members of Machsom Watch |
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In their own words | “to oppose the continuing violation of Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory... documenting and disseminating accurate and up-to-date information about the systematic violation of human rights in the OPT, by raising public awareness of such violations, and by applying public and legal pressures on government agencies to end them.” |
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Funding
- In 2018, total income was NIS 5.5 million; total expenses were NIS 4.8 million,
- Donors include: European Union, United Kingdom, Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (joint funding from Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands), Norwegian Refugee Council, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), HEKS (Switzerland), Norway, Ireland, Germany, and Oxfam Novib (Netherlands).
- Based on information submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits, in accordance with the Israeli NGO transparency law, Yesh Din received NIS 35,190,090 from foreign governmental bodies in 2012-2019 (see chart below for detailed funding information).
- According to annual reports, donations from foreign countries comprised 92.9% of total donations in 2012-2016.
- In 2014-2017, Yesh Din received $501,700 in core funding from the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (a joint funding mechanism of Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands that closed in 2017).
- In 2017, Yesh Din was granted $30,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for general support.
- According to information released by donors, Yesh Din received €102,942 in 2016 and €102,941 in 2017 from Oxfam-Solidarité (Belgium).
- In 2016, Yesh Din was an “implementing partner” for a project through the Norwegian Refugee Council for $6.8 million to “protect the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip affected by displacement.” Other implementing partners were Society of St. Ives, HaMoked, Community Action Centre, Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC), Bimkom, Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution (PCDCR), Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), and Al-Mezan.
- In 2012-2018, the New Israel Fund (NIF) authorized grants worth $650,535 to Yesh Din
- In 2011-2013, Yesh Din undertook a €234,000 project “To change Israeli policy vis-a-vis criminal accountability of Israeli Security Forces Personnel in the occupied Palestinian Territories, in such a way that acknowledges and takes into account the severity and the different nature of War Crimes, as distinguished from regular, domestic crimes” (emphasis added). (The EU is funding €150,000 of this project; according to Yesh Din’s website, Ireland also contributed NIS 331,200 to a project on “criminal accountability of security forces.”)
Activities
- Yesh Din regularly petitions the High Court of Justice to alter Israeli policy (for example, to cancel the law prohibiting the transportation of Palestinians in Israeli vehicles within the West Bank and to gain access to military court records).
- According to Emily Schaeffer, then a lawyer on Yesh Din’s legal team, “Yesh Din was founded to use law as a tool to fight the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.”
- Engages in advocacy campaigns, such as briefings to foreign diplomats and encouraging Palestinians to claim compensation for seized land.
- Publishes statistics and findings related to what it calls “ideologically-motivated crimes” against Palestinians, as well as what it claims is a lack of Israeli law enforcement in the West Bank. According to NGO Monitor research, these oft-cited statistics are misleading and misrepresentative when taken in context. Yesh Din’s categorizations are not used by Israel or other jurisdictions around the world, thus making it impossible to properly evaluate the claims and compare the rates to other areas. (Read NGO Monitor’s report “Yesh Din’s Fuzzy Math: A Comparative Analysis of Global Crime Statistics.”)
- On May 6, 2016, Yesh Din Legal Adviser Michael Sfard presented Yesh Din’s data on “law enforcement regarding ideologically motivated crime[s]” to the UN Security Council. The representative of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) to the UN tweeted that Sfard claimed that “settlers violence is aimed at coercive demog[raphic] change by evicting Palestinians.”
- In April 2018, Yesh Din, alongside Emek Shaveh, published a report titled “Appropriating the Past – Israel’s Archaeological Practices in the West Bank” that analyzed “how the State of Israel is trying to use archaeology to prove the historical, religious and cultural affinity of the Jewish people with the West Bank, as yet another means of justifying its ongoing policy of dispossession, occupation and control in the Occupied Territories.”
- In April 2018, Yesh Din, together with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Gisha, and Hamoked, petitioned the High Court of Justice demanding that the “Court order the cancellation of open-fire regulations allowing IDF soldiers to fire live ammunition at demonstrators who do not endanger the lives of soldiers on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.” The petition ignores the violent nature of the protests, which included Molotov cocktails, arson, and attempts to breach the border fence with Israel. The Court rejected the petition, stating that the NGOs misrepresented the situation along the border and the applicable international legal framework. The court also found that following the NGOs’ recommended steps would result in more Palestinian casualties.
- According to an article in Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon (January 2018), Murad Jadallah, a field researcher at Yesh Din, tweeted praise for the terrorists Sameer Kuntar, Yihye Ayash, and Hassan Nasrallah, and also shared a photo of himself posing with Salah Hamouri (June 29, 2013) – a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist responsible for planning the assassination of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel.
- The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
- On June 14, 2017, Yesh Din, alongside 16 other NGOs, sent a letter to the Attorney General requesting that he “direct the cabinet to immediately rescind its decision” to reduce the electricity supply to Gaza, claiming that it “contravenes Israeli and international law.”
- On February 15, 2017, Yesh Din participated in a Knesset conference on 50 Years of Occupation with the message that “Israel must choose between peace with the Palestinians, and the road to apartheid or war.”
- During the 2014 Gaza War, Yesh Din was one of a number of NGOs that condemned Israel for possible “violations of international humanitarian law.” Yesh Din was one signatory on a letter to Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein accusing Israel of violating international law.
- Yesh Din was among the organizations that formed the basis of the UN Human Rights Council report on the 2014 Gaza War (“Schabas-Davis report), although it lacks the proper evidence and fact-finding methodology to make claims of Israeli wrongdoing.
- In 2013, the organization published a report calling for Israeli legislation to codify “war crimes” in Israeli law. The organization did not specify that the report was “commissioned” by the EU. However, in its reporting of 2011 grants, the EU described a grant of €150,000 from 2011-2013 in order to “change Israeli policy vis- a- vis criminal accountability of Israeli Security Forces Personnel in the occupied Palestinian Territories, in such a way that acknowledges and takes into account the severity and the different nature of War Crimes, as distinguished from regular, domestic crimes.”
- Yesh Din’s report was part of a wider “lawfare” strategy of pressing “war crimes” cases against Israeli officials in foreign courts and in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
- After the 2008-2009 Gaza War, seven Israeli NGOs including Yesh Din submitted a joint report to the Goldstone Commission claiming that “Israel’s failure to conduct an independent investigation of the totality of events, there is also a systemic-intrinsic flaw in the investigation of concrete events.” According to the NGOs, this “failure to investigate instances in which civilians were wounded or killed has led to a sense of impunity and immunity from sanctions among soldiers and commanders.”
Michael Sfard
- Michael Sfard, Yesh Din’s primary legal counsel and an editor of many of its reports, claims, “If war crimes are committed and an apartheid system is being deployed under our eyes, it is the moral duty of a citizen of the country responsible, to combat this, even if it means using external legal means.”
- In 2015, Sfard testified as an expert witness for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). In the case, Sokolow v. Palestinian Liberation Organization, victims of terror and their family members sought damages due to alleged PLO attacks that occurred between 2001 and 2004.
- Together with his associate Emily Schaeffer, Sfard authored a European Union-funded report “No Home, No Homeland” (2011), on behalf of radical Israeli organization the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
- Sfard has also represented the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement and the Human Rights Defenders Fund, both funded by foreign governments (Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement has since become defunct).
- Sfard worked with Al-Haq, a leading anti-Israel “lawfare” NGO funded by European governments, on a lawsuit filed in Canada seeking a judicial declaration of Israel’s guilt in committing “war crimes” and deeming the security barrier illegal.
- The case was dismissed with partial costs (September 18, 2009).
- In February 2013, Sfard represented the “victims” in a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee against the government of Canada, alleging that Canada violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) when its courts ruled that it did not have jurisdiction over the case.
Partners
- Member of the “Legal Taskforce,” together with other NGOs (including HaMoked, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Addameer, Norwegian Refugee Council), which seeks to “employ lawyers and have legal action strategies in the struggle against the occupation.”
- Member of the “Displacement Work Group,” an initiative of Badil and OCHA to “monitor human rights violations (evictions, home demolitions, land confiscations) resulting in the displacement of people from their lands and communities,” along with: Addameer, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, AIC, ARIJ, Badil, BIMKOM, B’Tselem, CARE Intnl., DCI – Palestine section, Diakonia, EAPPI, Ir Amim, ICAHD, Maan Development Ctr, Medical Aid for Palestinians, Oxfam UK, Oxfam Solidarite – Belgium, PA Govt. Spokesperson, PCHR, RHR, Society of St. Yves, Save the Children UK, Shatil, UNFPA, Stop the Wall, ACRI, UNFPA, and World Vision.
Foreign donations (amounts in NIS)
2015-2017 amounts based on NGO annual reports; 2018-2019 amounts based on financial reports submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits
Donor | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) | 342,607 | 953,874 | 1,300,193 | 483,677 | 602,638 |
Britain | | | | 690,189 | 1,045,205 |
Norway | | 354,029 | 338,729 | | 403,462 |
Oxfam Novib (Netherlands) | 171,635 | 132,749 | 614,526 | 564,838 | 353,091 |
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (joint funding from Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands) | | | 698,676 | | 156,700 |
CAFOD | | | 164,798 | | 156,550 |
Netherlands | | 666,031 | | | |
European Union | 424,736 | 572,028 | 202,366 | | 83,145 |
Germany | | 826,214 | 1,955,088 | | |
Ireland | | 387,171 | 734,724 | | |
Belgium | | | | | |
HEKS-EPER (Switzerland) | | | | | |
Holland | | | | | |
Oxfam (UK) | | | | | |
UNDP | | | | | |
United Kingdom | | | | 690,189 | |
NOVA (Spain) | | | | 85,765 | |
Misereor | | 213,383 | | | |
UN OCHA | 178,315 | | | | |
UNDP | 142,817 | | | | |
AECID (Spain) | 627,840 | | | | |
Rockefeller Brothers Fund | | | 105,840 | | |
France | | | 114,557 | | |
Related Articles
Reports
In November 2017, the EU approved a four-year grant to an Israeli legal NGO, Yesh Din, for a project designed to increase “Israeli security forces personnel (ISFP) accountability for forcible home entries in line with democratic standards and international humanitarian and human rights law.” Yesh Din is carrying out these efforts in partnership with Breaking the Silence and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I).
The Jerusalem Post
October 15, 2013
In The Media
The EU and European governments must openly and honestly explain to the Israeli public and their own taxpayers what motivates funding to highly politicized NGOs.
Reports
As part of a wider lawfare strategy of pressing war crimes cases against Israeli officials in foreign courts and in the International Criminal Court (ICC), foreign funded Yesh Din attempts to portray Israel and its security forces as unaccountable to the rule of law.
All Articles about Yesh Din- Volunteers for Human Rights