CCFD - Terre Solidaire
Introduction
CCFD-Terre Solidaire (Comité catholique contre la faim et pour le développement-Terre Solidaire) is an association of 29 secular and religious movements that supports more than 753 projects in 63 countries in collaboration with local partners.
Profile
Country/Territory | France |
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Activity
- CCFD promotes a one-sided Palestinian narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
- In 2013, CCFD hosted an “immersive tour to Palestine” and a corresponding conference. The conference justified Palestinian violence against Israelis, referring to how Palestinians “resist, […] also taking up arms, driven by despair to their hopeless situation.”
- Journalist and CCFD employee Anne Isabelle Barthélémy’s book, titled “The Challenge of Peace: In the Name of their Faith, Christians Engage in More Justice in Palestine and in Israel,” accuses Israel of “apartheid.” The book was published by CCFD, le Secours catholique, Pax Christi, and Justice and Peace.
- Barthélémy also authored an article on CCFD’s website in which she highlighted the work of the politicized NGO Adalah.
BDS Activities
- Calls for “defending the right to boycott the products from Israeli settlements, and for stopping the criminalization of the BDS movement. ”
- In March 2017, along with groups including International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS), Al-Haq, and the French League of Human Rights (LDH) published a document ‘The dangerous ties between French banks and insurances companies with the Israeli occupation‘, which recommends that the French government pressure French financial institutions to “disengage without delay from any financial link with the Israeli banking system,” and create “a legislative proposal prohibiting enterprises from all sectors to invest in the settlements.” The report only points to very minor and indirect connections, if at all, to settlements, and French courts have repeatedly found that such business activity is not illegal.The report was funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
- CCFD was one of the organizations behind the 2015 BDS campaign against the Orange mobile phone network in Israel, Partner Communications. CCFD partnered with other groups to author a report titled “Orange’s Dangerous Liaisons in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” This publication was accompanied by intensive lobbying of the French government, the French company Orange, and the Palestinian Authority.
- Supports the “Made it Illegality” campaign, which supports BDS aims. The campaign’s goals are “prohibiting the import of settlement products,” “excluding the settlements from their bilateral agreements and cooperation with Israel,” and “excluding companies which are active or located in the settlements from public markets and public procurement procedures…”
- In August 2014, CCFD published an appeal for the EU and their member states to divest from all settlements activities. In July 2014, CCFD and FIDH published a document titled “European Measures against Israeli Occupation,” calling for settlement product labeling and divestment from business and other activities with Israeli entities beyond the 1949 Armistice Line. The document also urges the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to endorse calls for divestment from settlement activities.
- In 2015, CCFD provided ACAD and ASALA, two organizations that support the academic boycott of Israeli institutions, with micro-finance grants via its “International Solidarity for Development and Investment” (SIDI) fund.
Funding
In 2016, CCFD- Terre Solidaire’s (CCFD) total budget was €43 million, of which €4.5 million (10%) was provided by government funding and €28 million by public donations.
Funding for politicized NGOs
- Since 2013, CCFD-Terre Solidaire’s subsidiary, the International Solidarity for Development and Investment (SIDI), has been providing funds to the Arab Center for Agriculture Development (ACAD) via its participation in ACAD-Finance, a shareholding company owned by ACAD that provides micro-finance loans. ACAD, which is a member of the highly politicized Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), supports BDS campaigns against Israel, including the academic boycott of Israeli institutions.
- Judeh Deeb Ibrahim Jamal, ACAD’s former Board of Directors’ Chairman and, simultaneously, General Director of Qatar Charity was convicted in 2015 for his activity in the Qatar Charity – an illegal organization in Israel due to its ties to Hamas – and for his transferring of funds to the Hamas (on file). Jamal was also the founder of the politicized Palestinian organization Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC).
- Muhsen Abu Ramdan, ACAD’s Gaza Branch Manager, is the former director of PNGO in Gaza. In an article published on the website of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), an “affiliate” of the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization, Abu Ramdan is described as being “an active member of the national campaign to boycott Israeli products” that “called for an escalation of the campaign to boycott Israel, withdraw investments and impose sanctions on it as a mean of resistance…”
- In November 2016, CCFD, together with Mouvement pour une Alternative Non- violente (MAN) and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Foundation, funded Israeli NGO De-Colonizer’s creating a map depicting “Colonialism in Destru(A)ction,” aiming “to show the historical continuum of the ongoing colonial project until today, and gives an indication on what might be the future if there is no political international substantial mobilization to stop Israel.”
- The organization De-Colonizer, which claims that the “occupation started at the daylight of the Zionist immigration,” was founded by Eitan Bronstein, founder the NGO Zochrot. Zochrot supports a “One State Solution” or a “de-Zionized Palestine,” and refers to Israel as having an “ethnicized and racialized Zionist” system.
Information about grants for 2013-14 based on annual reports submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits; for 2015-2016, from quarterly reports. All amounts listed in NIS.
NGO | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Zochrot | 89,768 | 135,322 | 98,932 | 139,124 | 141,861 |
HaMoked | 92,457 | 129,706 | |||
Alternative Information Center | 56,376 | 21,705 | 37,759 | 95,856* | |
Breaking the Silence | 64,054 | 41,600 | 47,258 | ||
Sadaka-Reut | 86,136 | 107,595 | |||
The Social TV | 21,101 | ||||
Emek Shaveh | 75,042 | 64,004 | 42,000 | ||
Who Profits | 40,017 |
*Based on quarterly reports
CCFD has partnered with and funded the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Funding amounts are not given.
Partners
- CCFD-Terre Solidaire is a member of the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine.
- Pax Christi France is a partner in CCFD’s network
- Pax Christi France is also a member of the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine.
- Pax Christi France has ties to the politicized NGO Sabeel Eucumenical Liberation Theology Center, which promotes a one-state vision and claims that Palestinians represent a modern-day version of Jesus’ suffering. Sabeel Director Naim Ateek frequently employs antisemitic themes and imagery.
- Pax Christi France compares the situation in the West Bank and Gaza to the occupation of France by Nazi Germany during World War II and to apartheid South Africa.