On February 9, 2018, The Times of London revealed that employees of global NGO giant, Oxfam International, had procured prostitutes while doing relief work in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Roland Van Hauwemeiren, who was then the Haiti Country Director for Oxfam, was chiefly implicated in the scandal.
According to an article in Makor Rishon (January 26, 2018), Murad Jadallah, a field researcher working for the Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) Yesh Din, tweeted praise of the terrorists Sameer Kuntar, Yihye Ayash, and Hassan Nasrallah.
The Irish Parliament is considering a bill, drafted in conjunction with Trocaire and Christian Aid, two powerful NGOs involved in demonization of Israel, ostensibly to criminalize trade in Israeli settlement goods. Although the bill refers generically to “occupied territories,” it was clearly written to explicitly target Israel.
What happens when a journalist exclusively engages with a narrow selection of civil society in a foreign country? Roger Cohen’s column about Israeli policy in Hebron (“Holy City of Sterile Streets,” January 20, 2018) exemplifies the problems. Cohen provides the single perspective of an openly political group, “Breaking the Silence.”
On January 23, 2018, the UN Human Rights Council reviewed Israel as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) framework. In advance of and during Israel’s review, numerous self-proclaimed human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) took to social media where they made false and exaggerated accusations – for instance, accusing Israel of war crimes.
Amnesty International-UK’s Human Rights Centre in London was originally scheduled to host a debate on January 24, between Hillel Neuer of UN Watch and Fred Carver of the UN Association, moderated by human rights attorney and Yahad board member Danny Friedman. A few days before the event (January 24), however, Amnesty-UK abruptly cancelled the event on the grounds that the organization was “currently campaigning for all governments around the world to ban the import of goods produced in the illegal Israeli settlements.
The UN Human Rights Council’s annual report for 2017 presents a full list of resolutions passed by the Council throughout the year. The disproportionate number of resolutions against Israel reflects the nearly 100 NGOs that are receiving millions of dollars from governments around the world to push anti-Israel agendas at the UN.
On January 14, 2017, Amnesty International issued a press statement (“Israel Must Release Teenage Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi”) claiming, despite damning video footage of 16-year old Ahed Tamimi assaulting soldiers, that “Israeli authorities must release” her. The charges against Tamimi also include incitement to terror, such as a statement that “Whether it is stabbings or suicide bombings or throwing stones, everyone must do his part and we must unite in order for our message to be heard that we want to liberate Palestine” (emphasis added). Nevertheless, Amnesty argues, “Nothing that Ahed Tamimi has done can justify the continuing detention of a 16-year-old girl.”
On December 22, 2017, following an internal investigation of its funding to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Danish Foreign Ministry announced that the “majority of Danish aid to the organizations, which was suspended in 2017, will not be paid.” The ministry also confirmed that that “donor cooperation [to the Ramallah-based NGO funding mechanism] will end at the end of the year 2017.”
In October 2017, Union Juive Française pour la Paix (UJFP) released a series of ten video clips “Paroles juives contre le racisme” (“Jewish words against racism”). The videos feature highly incendiary remarks against the State of Israel, Zionism, and France. UJFP is active in discriminatory and illegal (according to the Court of Cassation) anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns in France and is a member of the Platform of the French NGOs for Palestine.
Copyright 2024 Institute for NGO Research - R.A. 58-0465508. All Rights Reserved.
