November 13, 2017

Dear Ambassador Gilles Beschoor Plug,

Thank you for taking the time to meet with us last week.

A digital copy of our new report of the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat can be found at this link. Any feedback or comments would be most welcome.

We would appreciate a clarification on one of the points of our discussion:

You confirmed that Dutch funding to the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) ended, after the NGO was involved in a youth center named after Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who in 1978 murdered 37 civilians.

This appears to be contradicted by the information available on the Secretariat’s own website, which shows that core funding WATC increased from $530,000 in 2014-2016 to $674,000 in 2017. Furthermore, the Secretariat makes no mention of the Netherlands (or any other donor) suspending funding to WATC.

We would appreciate your assistance in understanding this apparent discrepancy. (As mentioned in our meeting, documentation on this project is not publicly available on www.openaid.nl.)

Thank you again for your assistance and looking forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Shaun Sacks

Europe Desk

P.S. For your information, I re-checked the IOB’s “Evaluation of Dutch Development Cooperation in the Palestinian Territories 2008-2014.” The terms of reference (pg 10) explicitly state, “The question to what extent the programme has contributed to the two states solution and peace between Israel and the Palestinian Territories will not be subject of the evaluation because, given the complex political environment, those longer term goals are beyond the scope of the Dutch development cooperation programme, although its aims contribute to these objectives.” In addition, the evaluation does not address the core question that inspired the mandated review – the issues of aid appropriation by terrorist entities.

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November 14, 2017

Dear Mr. Sacks,

Thank you for following up on our recent meeting. I can answer your request for clarification as follows:

  • The information on the website of the Secretariat reflects the original project (2014-2016) and the extension (2017). Dutch funding was stopped in October. The website apparently has not been updated.
  • The direct objectives of the Dutch development cooperation in the Palestine Territories are the advancement of the territories and strengthening of the Palestinian Authority – and so by implication to contribute to the peace process. The evaluation is part of a regular process in which every development cooperation relation is evaluated on a regular basis; there was no specific core question that inspired the review.

Sincerely yours,

Gilles Plug

Gilles Beschoor Plug | Ambassador | Embassy  of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Tel Aviv