Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS)

Activity

• Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS) is the foundation affiliated with the far-Left Die Linke party, which originated in East Germany based on a neo-Marxist ideology.
• Office headquarters located in Berlin, with additional branches in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and other international locations.

Funding

• In 2016, total income was €57.2 million, of which RLS received €55.5 million from the German government.
• Funding is provided to highly politicized NGOs and projects, including Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA), Al-Marsad, Combatants for Peace (CFP), and Aid Watch Palestine (AWP). RLS lists its Israeli and Palestinian “Partners & Projects,” but does not publish funding details. (See funding chart below for partial funding information.)
  • Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) is identified by Fatah as an official Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) “affiliate” and by USAID as the “agricultural arm” of the PFLP. The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. According to academic scholar Glenn E. Robinson, UAWC was founded in 1986 by “agronomists loosely affiliated with the PFLP.”
  • Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA) is signatory to the March 2016 “Palestinian Women’s Call for Worldwide Women’s Endorsement of BDS.” CFTA’s Director, Mariam Zakoot signed on a 2016 statement from Palestinian feminists supporting BDS and “deplor(ing) the colonial attitude inherent in some Israeli feminists’ request of us to sign a statement in favor of liberal ideals, ‘dialogue’ and ‘co-existence,’ and against the effective solidarity with the struggle for rights.”
  • Combatants for Peace (CFP) received NIS 173,809 in 2014-2017 for support of its “Memorial Day ceremony.” Combatants for Peace was part of the “Remove the Siege – Stop the War” coalition that stood “in defiance of the siege and the destruction and military bombardment…being exercised in Gaza with careless disregard…[and] protest the ongoing massacre,” in partnership with radical NGOs such as New Profile, Alternative Information Center, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Coalition of Women for Peace, and others.
  • Aid Watch Palestine criticizes international aid, suggesting that “the way donors give aid can never lead to real development because it doesn’t challenge the Israeli occupation and colonization.” Its funding policy states that “We will not sign any contractual clauses that obligate us to enforce a foreign government’s anti-terrorism policy on our own people or that requires us to limit community participation on the basis of political affiliation alone.”

Staff members and affiliates

• In a December 2017 interview conducted by RLS, RLS liaison lecturer Helga Baumgarten, describes the 2015 terror wave as “isolated Palestinian teenagers, almost children, who, in individual actions as a result of their desperation over their personal circumstances resorted to resistance in the form of stabbing attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers” (emphasis added). In the same interview, Baumgarten argues that “a political demand that has become increasingly prevalent in Palestinian society in recent years could develop into the only seemingly feasible political strategy: ONE state in historical Palestine” (emphasis in original, NGO Monitor translation).
• In a 2015 interview with Katja Hermann, at the time Head of the RLS Palestine Office and currently Head of the Middle East/Asia Unit, Hermann alleged that “The occupation, as well as the structural discrimination against the Palestinian minority in Israel, is backed by a political system that is based on racism. Children learn already in school that Palestinians are not equal human beings, this continues in the army, where they [Palestinians] become a security problem and a legitimate target. In this context of racism, the use of force against Palestinians is tolerated” (emphases added, NGO Monitor translation).
• Tsafrir Cohen, head of RLS’ Israel office, is the former head of the “Israel & Palestine” office of German NGO Medico International (MI).
  • MI regularly funds highly politicized Israeli and Palestinian NGOs and has accused Israel of “internal and external land grab[s]” and the “erosion of democratic values,” describing the Israeli government as “blatantly racist.”
  • In a June 2017 interview Cohen stated that “Processes of colonization usually end through resistance of the colonized against the colonizers. We are not seeing this now… The Palestinians are tired after two uprisings… Then there is the Israeli public… There are many [in Israel] who profit financially from the occupation, and many whom it does not hurt financially. And then there’s international politics, It too is doing nothing in order to shift the cost-benefit-ratio so as to render an end to the occupation and a political solution a necessity” (emphasis added, NGO Monitor translation).
  • In a 2013 article in a German newspaper, Cohen openly advocated for the imposition of German sanctions on Israel. In a 2014 MI blog post titled “No to Blind Solidarity with Israel,” Cohen wrote that “Tel Aviv’s policies endanger Israeli as well as Palestinian society. Europe is obliged to intervene” (NGO Monitor translation).
• Issa Rabadi, program manager at the RLS Ramallah office, has worked previously for BADIL and the Kanan Coalition Project.
  • BADIL was founded to promote a Palestinian “right of return” and is a leader of international BDS campaigns. BADIL holds annual “right of return contests” and has published antisemitic cartoons on its website, as well as imagery promoting the elimination of Israel, which is a widely recognized form of antisemitism.
  • The Kanan Coalition is a Spanish-funded project implemented by eight political NGOs, including Defense for Children International – Palestine, Alternative Information Center, and Health Work Committees, all of which have reported ties to the PFLP terrorist organization.

Funding to Israeli and Palestinian NGOs

*Funding information to Israeli NGOs is according to information submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits. Information on funding to ARIJ was taken from its annual report; Bisan does not disclose funding details.