Activity

• Spanish funding to politicized non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict is highly decentralized, taking place at several levels of governance in Spain. Funds are managed and allocated by the central government, autonomous communities, provincial deputations, municipalities, and bar associations – reflecting deep political fissures and regional radicalization.
• Spain provides millions of euros to highly politicized NGOs that promote anti-Israel narratives, including antisemitism, incitement, lawfare, and discriminatory BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel. Some of these groups also have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization by in the EU, US, Canada, and Israel.
• NGO Monitor analysis shows that in 2015-2018, the Spanish central government and the Basque and Andalucía autonomous communities provided at least €16.6 million¹ to NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Of this, 95% was transferred through political Spanish NGOs for projects in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza in partnership with local Palestinian NGOs.
  • Approximately €6.2 million (37% of total funding) was allocated for projects involving Palestinian NGOs with ties to the PFLP.
  • Approximately €2 million (12% of total funding) was allocated for projects involving Palestinian NGOs that promote anti-Israel campaigns, including antisemitism, glorifying violence, lawfare, and BDS campaigns.
• On June 28, 2017, in the Spanish Parliament, NGO Monitor and ACOM presented a joint report on Spanish funding. At this event, MK Yair Lapid, Chair of the centrist Yesh Atid party, encouraged his counterparts in Spain to take steps to prevent counterproductive and detrimental government funding.

Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID)

• The largest Spanish foreign aid donor is the Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), under the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. According to its charter, the agency was created “to foster full development, conceived as a fundamental human right, with the fight against poverty as part of the process for building this right.”
• In addition to directly funding various Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, AECID funds projects carried out by Spanish NGOs together with local partners.
• AECID has provided grants to a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict, including Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), Al-Haq, Bisan Centre for Research and Development, Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC), and the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ). All of these organizations promote BDS and utilize demonizing rhetoric, and five of these beneficiaries have reported ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist entity by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
• In parallel, AECID provides funding to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) – a group that engages in lawfare and international delegitimization campaigns against Israel. (See NGO Monitor’s report “Flooding the Courts: The Norwegian Refugee Council’s European-Funded Proxy War” for details.)

Palestinian NGOs funded through AECID

• In 2018, AECID granted €268,627 to BADIL and Spanish NGO NOVACT for a project to “Prevent violent extremism in the oPt [occupied Palestinian territories]. An approach based on Human Rights and peacebuilding.”
  • 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. A cartoon that won a monetary prize for 2nd place in BADIL’s 2010 Al-Awda Nakba caricature competition is a blatant representation of classic antisemitic tropes, including a Jewish man, garbed in traditional Hasidic attire, with a hooked nose and side locks.
  • NOVACT promotes a number of political campaigns advocating sanctions against Israel and making severe allegations – such as the campaign “Hidden Business,” launched to “denounce the security, military and arms relations between the Spanish state and the state of Israel in order to claim the application of Spanish and European legislation on arms exports,” and the campaign “No More Complicity with Israel,” aiming to “show the role Israel plays in the design, research, implementation and sale abroad of different systems of repression.”
• In 2019-2021, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) provides UAWC with €400,000 for “Improving the economic situation of vulnerable farmers.”
  • UAWC is identified by Fatah as an official PFLP “affiliate,” and by USAID as the “agricultural arm” of the PFLP. According to academic scholar Glenn E. Robinson, UAWC was founded in 1986 by “agronomists loosely affiliated with the PFLP.”
  • Utilizes highly biased and demonizing rhetoric, accusing the “Israel occupation forces” of “continuing its brutal and immoral offensive [2014] war on Gaza” and an ongoing “policy of collective punishment in disregard for the international law and humanitarian law.”
  • In 2010, UAWC organized “a solidarity day with the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Saadat…” The “solidarity day” featured Muhammad Bakri, executive director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Gaza, and celebrated “the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi” (an attack perpetrated by the PFLP).
• In 2016, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al-Haq, in partnership with NOVACT, were granted  €302,765 from AECID for “Strengthening humanitarian response and protecting the rights of the population vulnerable in area C.”
  • PCHR describes Israel’s policies as “apartheid” and accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” “war crimes,” and the “Judaization of Jerusalem,” while regularly distorting or denying the context of terrorism against Israeli civilians.
    • According to a 1995 article in the Washington Report, PCHR director Raji Sourani served “a three-year sentence [1979-1982] imposed by an Israeli court which convicted him of membership in the illegal Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine…” He was also denied a US entry visa in 2012.
    • In February 2014, the PFLP organized a ceremony in Gaza honoring Sourani for winning the “Alternative Noble Prize.” Rabah Muhana, a member of the PFLP Political Bureau, delivered a speech at the prize ceremony.
  • Al-Haq General Director Shawan Jabarin has ties to the PFLP terrorist organization and, as a result, has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan. According to the Israeli Supreme court, Jabarin “is apparently acting as a manner of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, acting some of the time as the CEO of a human rights organization, and at other times as an activist in a terror organization.”
    • In 2009, Jabarin was again prohibited by the Israeli authorities from travelling abroad. Jabarin appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court which rejected his appeal, stating, “We found that the material pointing to the petitioner’s involvement in the activity of terrorist entities is concrete and reliable material.”
• In 2016, AECID granted €350,000 to the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) and Spanish NGO Movimiento por la Paz, el Desarme y la Libertad (MPDL) to “Promote decent work, protection and social justice for Palestinian women.”
  • PNGO refused to sign the anti-terror clause that is a condition of US government funding, stating “that its members would not sign funding agreements that included the ATC [Anti-Terror Certificate]: this is now a condition for membership under PNGO byelaws [sic]” (emphasis added).
  • In June 2017, PNGO condemned Norway for pulling funding from a youth center named after Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who in 1978 murdered 37 civilians, including 12 children. PNGO referred to Mughrabi as a “Palestinian Woman Freedom Fighter,” stating that “PNGO believes this is another form of foreign domination and oppression calling Palestinian resistance a terrorist resistance against Israeli occupation…PNGO stands strong against conditional funding, especially when it threatens Palestinian right to resist foreign domination, exploitation, oppression and occupation” and that “there is a difference between freedom fighters and terrorists” (emphasis added).
• In 2016, AECID granted €586,626 to Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA) and YMCA – East Jerusalem, in partnership with the Spanish NGOs Fundacion Alianza Por Los Derechos and La Igualdad Y La Solidaridad Internacional to “Fight against Gender Violence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”
  • In May 2017, WATC inaugurated a youth center for girls in the town of Burqa, near Nablus. As reported by Palestinian Media Watch, the center is named after Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who in 1978 murdered 37 civilians, including 12 children. Funding for this building was provided by Norway, UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women), and Palestinian Authority Ministry of Local Government.
  • In September 2017, CFTA organized a workshop on the rights of women in partnership with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. The workshop “touched upon a number of solid Palestinian feminist models such as Taghreed Al-Buttama, Maha Nassar and Laila Khaled, who have taught the Zionist enemy painful lessons in various combat operations.”
• In 2016, Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), in partnership with NOVACT, received €235,030 for “Strengthening of Palestinian women’s organizations for community development in Gaza and the West Bank.”
  • PMRS rhetoric includes accusations of “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” and “war crimes.”
  • PMRS runs “Palestine Monitor,” an “independent news website” meant to “expose life in Palestine under occupation to the West.”
    • Palestine Monitor’s publishes lengthy “Factbooks.” The latest, published in 2015, features virulently antisemitic cartoons that trivialize the Holocaust. In the introduction to the Factbook, Barghouti wrote, “We will obtain our freedom, in two states or in a one state solution.”
    • The cartoons featured in the 2015 Factbook include a depiction of a pile of emaciated dead bodies in striped uniforms under the caption “Gaza”; a cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stamping Palestinian babies with the word “terrorist,” as they are transported on a conveyer belt into a smoking oven; and a drawing of an elderly Palestinian woman with a blood-dripping “1948” tattooed on her arm, invoking the numbers that were tattooed on the arms of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps.
• In 2015, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) received €83,200 from AECID for “Improvement of participation in public spaces of the Palestinian women.”
  • According to Fatah, USAID, the Institute for Palestine Studies, and scholar Simona Sharoni, UPWC is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
  • On March 21, 2018, UPWC Vice President Suhair Khader declared that UPWC is the PFLP’s “feminist framework.”
• In 2015, AECID granted €76,380 to Bisan Centre for Research and Development for “Empowering young people from East Jerusalem to become agents of change.”
  • According to Palestinian organizations Samidoun – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and Addameer, Bisan’s Executive Director Eteraf Rimawi was arrested six times by Israeli forces between 1995 and 2014. As reported by Addameer, Rimawi was sentenced for 16-months in prison and fined NIS 5000 in 2000. During his detention in 2008, an Israeli military judge affirmed that “Eteraf was active in political activities related to the PFLP.”
  • Lamees Farraj, Project Coordinator at Bisan, is a signatory on behalf of Bisan to the “Support Statement of Palestinian Feminists in Palestine and Diaspora,” published in February 2016, which accuses Israel of “colonial and racist oppression”; “deplore[s] the colonial attitude inherent in some Israeli feminists’ request of us to sign a statement in favor of liberal ideals . . . and against the effective solidarity with the struggle for rights”; and “emphasize[s] that popular resistance movements, including the boycott movement, are feminist issues as well.”
• In 2015, Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC) received €128,825 from AECID to “Promote legal reform to eliminate the discrimination against women in Palestine.”
  • Randa Siniora, General Director of WCLAC and former General Director of Al-Haq, has stated, “Although resistance against occupation and its arbitrary practices is legitimate under international law, and these acts are considered a part of the Palestinian people’s resistance and struggle against occupation in order to achieve their right to liberation and independence, the occupation forces call it ‘terrorism’ or ‘destructive acts.’”
  • Manal Tamimi frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media. For example, on August 1, 2015, Tamimi tweeted, “I do hate Israel ,i (sic) wish a thrid Intefada (sic) coming soon and people rais (sic) up and kills all these zionist settlers everywhere.” In September 2015, on Yom Kippur (a fast day and the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar), Tamimi tweeted, “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.”
• In 2015, AECID granted €199,611 to Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ) for the “sustainable management of water treatment.”
  • ARIJ is among the leaders of the political warfare against Israel, seeking to further boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), false accusations of Israeli “apartheid” and “racism,” and support for a Palestinian “right of return” that is inconsistent with two-state solution.

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

• In 2018, AECID granted NRC €568,182 as part of its “Humanitarian Support to Protect Palestinians in the West Bank from forcible transfer.” In 2017, AECID provided NRC €128,452 for NRC’s Information, Counseling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) program.
  • ICLA, one of NRC’s principle projects in Israel, exploits judicial frameworks to manipulate Israeli policy, bypassing democratic frameworks.
  • A lawyer affiliated with the NRC program stated that the objective of these cases are an attempt to “try every possible legal measure to disrupt the Israeli judicial system…as many cases as possible are registered and that as many cases as possible are appealed to increase the workload of the courts and the Supreme Court to such an extent that there will be a blockage” (emphasis added).

Basque Autonomous Community

• Since 2014, the Basque Autonomous Community has provided at least €3.5 million to Palestinian PFLP linked NGOs, including Addameer, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), Health Work Committees (HWC),  Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), and Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC).
• Funding of Palestinian NGOs is mainly channeled via politicized Spanish NGOs and is granted by multiple Basque governmental bodies such as the Basque Government; Provincial Councils of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa; and the Municipalities of Bilbao, San Sebastián and Vitoria-Gasteiz.
• The Basque Autonomous Community also funds projects to develop and strengthen BDS campaigns.

NGOs funded through the Basque Autonomous Community

• Addameer
  • In 2014-2019, Addameer, was granted (directly and via Spanish NGOs) €1.1 million from the Basque and Navarre communities. Addameer is an official “affiliate” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated a terrorist entity by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
    • In 2017-2019, Addameer received €180,000 from the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation (AVCD) for the “protection of the rights of Palestinian prisoners.”
      • In May 2016, AVCD signed an agreement to grant Addameer €199,988 to “help Palestinian prisoners.”
    • In 2016-2018, the provincial council of Gipuzkoa provided €81,248 to Addameer and the Spanish NGO SODePAZ for “counseling, training and legal representation for Palestinian prisoners and their families.”
    • In 2014–2017, the municipality of Vitoria-Gasteiz provided €166,279 to Addameer and Spanish NGO Solidaridad Internacional for the “defense of the human rights of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”
      • According to Solidaridad Internacional website, the project “Rights of the prison population in Palestine,” is also receiving the support from the municipalities of Basauri and Irún.
    • In 2015–2018, the municipality of San Sebastián provided Addameer and SODePAZ with €135,918 for the “protection of the rights of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in israeli prisons and detention centers.”
      • This project also received €312,404 (2015-2017) from the Navarre Community.
  • Addameer is a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) “affiliate.” The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
• Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC)
  • In 2014-2018, AVCD provided €1 million to Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), “the PFLP’s health organization” via several Spanish NGOs:
    • In 2017-2018, AVCD granted €200,000 to UHWC and Paz con Dignidad to “improve the response capacity in emergency situations of the Al-Awda hospital in the northern area of ​​the Gaza strip.”
    • In 2016-2018, AVCD granted €200,000 to UHWC and SODePAZ for “Health care for chronically ill people in Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus.”
    • In 2016-2018, AVCD granted €200,000 to UHWC and Paz con Dignidad for “UHWC primary care centers in the Gaza Strip.”
  • In 2016-2017, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia provided UHWC (via Paz con Dignidad) with €80,000 for “support and strengthening of the radiology units of the center of specialties to the Awda and of the Khairia health center.”
  • UHWC is a PFLP-affiliated health committee active in Gaza.
    • Dr. Majed Nassar is Deputy Director of the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC) and has been cited as a PFLP member. Nassar also served as an official with Defense for Children International- Palestine (DCI-P) and is a member of the board of directors at the Alternative Information Center (AIC). From 2013 to 2014, Nassar served as Director of Programs in the West Bank for the British NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). According to a 2007 document, Israel has prevented Dr. Majed Nassar from traveling “since 2001,” a decision upheld by the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ).
    • Yousef Habash is the public relations officer at UHWC. Habash is apparently the nephew of PFLP founder George Habash. Israel prevented Yousef Habash from leaving the West Bank from 2011 to 2012. He is also a member of the BDS National Committee.
• Health Work Committees (HWC)
  • In 2014-2018, AVCD and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia provided €514,837 and €70,000 to Health Work Committees (HWC) via Paz con Dignidad for medical related projects.
  • HWC has been referred to as a “sister organization” of the UHWC.
    • Former executive director Dr. Majed Nassar has alleged ties to the PFLP. According to a 2007 document, Israel has prevented Dr. Majed Nassar from traveling “since 2001,” a decision upheld by the HCJ.
    • Daoud Ghoul, director of development projects and programs in Jerusalem, was convicted by an Israeli court of being a PFLP member (decision 19274-07-15).
• Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) (see above)
  • In 2015-2018, AVCD provided the Spanish NGO Mundubat €640,610 for “strengthening community resistance and Palestinian social cohesion in east Jerusalem.” The project, which lists the PFLP affiliated NGO Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees as a local partner, is part of the Kanan project, a project dedicated to strengthening “the social and political participation channels of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem through enhancing the capacity of the youth.”
    • The project is implemented by six NGOs, including UPWC, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Alternative Information Center (AIC), Bisan Center for Research and Development, and HWC, all of which have ties to the PFLP terrorist organization.
  • In 2015-2016, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia provided €7,500 to HWC via the Spanish NGO Mundubat to “contribute to organizational change for gender equity of the member organizations of the Kanan consortium.”
• Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) (see above)
  • In 2015, the Provincial Councils of Bizkaia provided UAWC with €69,450 via Mundubat for the “Rehabilitation of family agricultural infrastructure affected by the latest Israeli military intervention.”
  • In 2014, the Municipality of Bilbao provided UAWC with €30,000 via Mundubat for the “support for agricultural productivity programs.”
• Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) (see above)
  • In 2014-2016, the Municipality of San Sebastián provided PCHR (via SODePAZ) with €68,921 for the “defense of the rights of women in the Gaza strip through awareness raising, legal advice and assistance.”

Basque Autonomous Community funding of BDS activities

• In 2015-2016, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa granted Mundubat €100,000 for “support to the networks that work the Boycott to Israel in front of the occupation and the violation of the international Humanitarian Law in Palestine.”
  • In 2014-2015, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa granted Mundubat €100,000 for “creating networks supporting the boycott of Israel in the face of the occupation and violation of international humanitarian law in Palestine.”
• In 2015-2016, the municipality of San Sebastián provided SODePAZ with €29,926 for a project “Bringing the Culture of Palestinian Resistance to Donostia [a Basque city also known as San Sebastián]” that included a “Basque translation of a guide on cultural Boycott Divestment and Sanctions on the State of Israel (BDS).”

Andalucía Agency for International Development Cooperation (AACID)

• Andalucía Agency for International Development Cooperation (AACID) is a primary donor to NGO-led activities in the Arab-Israeli conflict, designating €1.5 million for such activities in 2017.
• Beyond granting financial support, AACID also held a BDS event “against Israeli apartheid” together with the Spanish NGO Al-Quds Association in 2014, featuring Raji Sourani of PCHR, Sergio Yahni of Alternative Information Center (AIC), and Spanish politician Teresa Rodriguez. Teresa Rodriguez is a far-left anti-Israel politician who has called on the EU to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel, accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in the 2014 Gaza war, and compared Gaza to “the Warsaw Ghetto.”
  • The participation of a governmental development cooperation agency in a radical and discriminatory political activity grossly diverges from AACID’s declared mandate to contribute “to the eradication of poverty and to the consolidation of processes aimed at ensuring sustainable human development,” and attests to severe politicization of Spanish development aid.

NGOs funded through AACID and Andalusian Municipalities

• Al Quds Association
  • In 2016, the Spanish organization Al Quds Association was granted €80,000 by AACID, all of which was designated for its project in partnership with Alternative Information Center (AIC), an Israeli NGO with ties to PFLP.
    • AIC co-founder Michael Warschawski was a leader of “Matzpen,” the anti-Zionist Trotskyite organization. Warschawski was jailed in the 1990s for publishing an informational pamphlet for the PFLP terror group (verdict on file).
    • The co-director of AIC, Nassar Ibrahim, is also the former editor of El Hadaf – the PFLP’s weekly publication.
  • In 2018, Al Quds Association and AIC produced, with support from the Malaga Provincial Council, a documentary titled “to exist is to resist” that features “Stories of resistance on both sides, with a focus on the joint struggle of Israelis and Palestinians against a system of colonization that seeks to normalize the dystopia of Israeli apartheid in the world” (emphasis in original). The documentary further claims that “from the ethnic cleansing of 1948 (Nakba) to the present day, the Palestinian population continues to resist the coup of Zionism with stoic heroism.”
  • In 2016, the Al Quds Association was granted €80,000 by AACID, all of which was designated for its project in partnership with Palestinian Center for Human Rights  (PCHR).
  • The Al Quds Association also receives funds from the municipality of Malaga for a project with Health Work Committees (HWC), granting it €7,750 in 2017.

Extremadura Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AEXCID)

• In 2017, the Extremadura Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AEXCID), “the body that manages the policies of [the autonomous community of ]Extremadura in matters of cooperation for development, peace building and humanitarian action,” provided the politicized Spanish NGOs NOVACT and Extremeña Association of Social Communication (AECOS) with €203,7922 for a project titled “Construction of peace and nonviolence: defenders and human rights defenders in action.”
  • The project included a “Palestinian Human Rights Defenders Conference” (October 2018) in which Manal Tamimi (see above) and Munther Amira of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC), and Ismat Hikmat Shakhshir and Tahreer Jaber of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) were hosted.
  • The project also included a video accusing Israel of “collective punishment” and referring to terrorists as “human rights defenders.”

Spanish Funding to Israeli/Palestinian Political NGOs