Activity

• The British government provides millions of pounds annually, through direct and indirect funding processes, to highly politicized non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that operate in the UK, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.
• NGO recipient organizations receive direct funding from the Department for International Development (DFID), the British National Security Council (NSC), and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with funds disbursed by UK embassies, consulates, and representative offices.
• Indirect NGO funding comes from aid frameworks like Christian Aid and other groups, including the British Council, War on Want, and Oxfam-GB, which all receive significant funding from the British government.

Direct UK Funding

The Department for International Development (DFID)

Screenshot; https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/location/country November 12, 2017

• Department for International Development (DFID) partners with and provides funds to politically active international NGOs including Norwegian Refugee Council, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW).
• DFID is currently funding eight active projects in the West Bank and Gaza, with a total budget of over £51.6 million (2017-2018). Five of these projects are NGO related.
• Information on projects funded by the DFID is available in a projects database. However, local NGO recipients and third-party recipients of UK funds via international organizations do not appear on the website.
• In July 2017, DFID published a funding review of the “Occupied Palestinian Territories,” indicating that the planned DFID budget to the area would increase from £54 million (2017/2018) to £64 million (2018/19).
• On June 10, 2017, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department of International Development Alistair Burt announced the allocation of £3 million over three years (2017-2020) to fund a co-existence or “people-to-people” programme. According to the DFID, the project, called “Partnerships for Peace,” will be implemented by an NGO, Search for Common Ground (SFCG).
• In April 2017, the British Embassy in Israel and British Consulate General in Jerusalem published a call for concept notes for program funding addressing “Protection of human rights of Palestinian minors in Israeli detention” and “Engaging with the Israeli authorities on improving Gaza movement and access.”
• In June 2016, the UK House of Commons held a debate on the government’s external aid spending. A central theme of the debate was the spending allocated for issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

DFID Projects in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank:

1. Supporting Palestinian refugees across the Middle East – in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. [GB-1-204546]
   • Budget: £167,499,999 (2016-2021)
   • Beneficiaries: Multiple UN Agencies, predominantly UNRWA
   • Details of third-party NGO recipients and amounts are not listed.
2. Improving Security & Access to Justice in the Occupied Palestinian Territories [GB-1-204797]
   • Budget: £10,799,999 (2015-2018)
   • Beneficiaries: Multiple UN Agencies
   • Details of third-party NGO recipients and amounts are not listed.
3. Support to Palestinians at Risk of Displacement in Israeli Controlled Area C of the West Bank and Gaza
   • Budget: £3,776,462 (2013-2018)
   • Beneficiaries: Multiple UN Agencies
   • Details of third-party NGO recipients and amounts are not listed:
   • Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is mentioned as a partner in accompanying documentation, but details and amounts are not available. (See below for further information on NRC.)
4. Humanitarian Access in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
   • Budget: £3,000,000 (2016-2021)
   • Beneficiary: United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
   • Project focus “aims to facilitate timely access of large amounts of construction materials into Gaza.”
   • UK’s Development Tracker website does not list names of UNOPS’s NGO subcontractors and grantees.
   • No further documentation is available on UK’s Development Tracker website.
5. Partnerships for Peace
   • Budget: £3,000,000 (2017-2020)
   • NGO recipient: Search For Common Ground
   • Project goal includes “People to people work to build understanding and cooperation with the health sector, young leaders, and religious leaders.”
   • No further information available on UK’s Development Tracker website.

Other DFID Projects

Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW)

• The DFID provided nearly £6 million to Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) in 2012-2016. Current funding to IRW is earmarked for activities throughout Africa. No new IRW projects appear on the DFID database in 2017.
• In January 2016, HSBC Banking group in the UK severed ties with IRW “amid concerns that cash for aid could end up with terrorist groups abroad.”
• On June 19, 2014, Israel’s Defense Minister declared IRW to be illegal, based on its alleged role in funneling money to Hamas, and banned it from operating in Israel and the West Bank. Hamas is a designated terror organization by Israel, the U.S., EU, and Canada. According to news reports, the decision was made after “the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the coordinator for government activities in the territories, and legal authorities provided incriminating information against IRW.”
• In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates banned IRW as terror organization.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)

• In 2015-2016, MAP reported income of £4.9 million and expenses of £5 million. 42% of “programme expenditure” went to Gaza.
• In 2015, Medical Aid for Palestinians received £750,000 from DFID for projects.
• MAP utilizes highly biased and politicized language, accusing Israel of “indiscriminate attacks” and “collective punishment” against the Palestinian population, while alleging that Israeli defensive measures are “arbitrary.”
• MAP focuses on the “nakba” (catastrophe) as a central theme in its work. MAP has dedicated newsletters, reflections, and several articles on the topic.
• MAP organizes “fact-finding” visits, together with the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) lobby group, to disseminate an anti-Israel narrative to British parliamentarians, journalists, and EU politicians.
• In June 2015, MAP, along with Al-Mezan and Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR), released “No More Impunity: Gaza’s Health Sector Under Attack.” The publication alleges the “destruction of and damage to medical infrastructure and loss of life and injury to civilians and medical personnel” during the 2014 Gaza conflict. Like previous publications from these NGOs, “No More Impunity” is characterized by one-sided accounts, a total lack of verifiable sources, and lack of context. In addition, MAP and its partners erase the terror affiliation of three “paramedics” and “medical volunteers” who were killed in an Israeli strike.
• MAP’s “2014 Gaza relief partners” included the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) and IDEALS, an NGO funded by Interpal, which the United States has designated a terrorist entity.
• Founder and Honorary Patron Swee Ang was one of the main authors of the “Open Letter for the People of Gaza,” published in The Lancet medical journal (July 23, 2014), which accused Israel of “war crimes” and  carrying out a propaganda campaign that “justifies the creation of an emergency to masquerade a massacre.” The letter made numerous unsubstantiated allegations, including accusing Israel of utilizing illegal weaponry to deliberately kill civilians and engaging in a “military onslaught on civilians in Gaza under the guise of punishing terrorists.” The letter also denies Israel’s right to self-defense and fails to mention Hamas rocket fire and terror tunnels from Gaza into Israeli territory.
  • According to NGO Monitor research, Swee Ang promoted a video made by American white supremacist David Duke, who was expelled from Italy for “allegedly trying to establish a pan-European neo-Nazi group.” The video is described on Duke’s YouTube page as “reveal[ing] how the Zionist Matrix of Power controls Media, Politics and Banking and how each Part of this Tribalist matrix supports and protects each other!”
  • In February 2017, when asked about the antisemitic video at the University College of London Union, Swee Ang responded that she doesn’t “think it’s entirely anti-Jewish.”

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

• NRC received two grants totaling over £20 million from the DFID.
• Between 2011- 2016, DFID granted £14,623,082 to NRC’s Information, Counseling, and Legal Assistance(ICLA) project. One of NRC’s principal projects in Israel, ICLA exploits judicial frameworks to manipulate Israeli policy, bypassing democratic frameworks.
• In 2013-2016, NRC received £6,499,999 from DFID specifically for “legal aid” in the West Bank and Gaza.
• NRC’s partners, which “provided legal representation in court for 4,069 cases” from June 2009 until August 2014, include political NGOs Society of St Yves, Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC), HaMoked, Yesh Din, Community Action Centre, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), and Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution (PCDCR).
  • Local NGO recipients and third-party recipients of UK funds via the NRC do not appear on the UK government transparency website.

Ma’an News Agency (MNA) / Ma’an Network

• Ma’an Network received £730,000 (2015-2017) from the United Kingdom as part of a “multimedia project to raise awareness of, and seek to prevent, violence against women and girls.”
  • In correspondences with NGO Monitor, Minister of State for International Development and Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Alistair Burt confirmed that DFID was ending its projects with Ma’an.
• Ma’an acts as a platform for tendentious anti-Israel statements, regularly presenting an entirely biased and distorted view of the conflict based on the Palestinian narrative of victimization and sole Israeli aggression, while also publicizing material from radical NGOs.
• On August 1, 2017, Ma’an published an article and a video titled “Song in Hebrew in Defense of Al Aqsa Mosque,” which featured footage of terrorist attacks against Israelis, accompanied by a song in Hebrew with the lyrics “I will clean my country of every Jew / I will strive for it with all my being” (NGO Monitor translation). The article reported that it “promises to clean Palestine of Jews, and protests against Israeli security measures,” with Ma’an adding commentary that “Israel deteriorated the situation in Al Aqsa mosque when it installed metal detectors in the entrance to Al Aqsa compound” (NGO Monitor translation).
  • Ma’an subsequently published an article claiming that “Ma’an did not produce the video, but had only written about its existence,” and accusing “Israel supporters” of “showing the video out of context and claiming that it was created and condoned by Ma’an.”
  • Ma’an additionally stated that “Both the article and the video have since been removed from Ma’an online platforms.”

Tajaawob Program

• The Tajaawob program originally included Miftah, Oxfam GB, Aman, and Palestinian Vision (PalVision, or “Ruya”), along with the BBC.
• Tajaawob’s interactive map of the region does not include Israel. It refers to the Negev as “South Palestine” and the Galilee region as “North Palestine.”
• The program began in 2012 and “was extended as of April 2015 by 15 months with an additional contribution of £720,000.” The DFID stated, “In the cost extension, the number of partners will be reduced. Oxfam GB is not currently able to deliver their specialised advocacy training model in Gaza. The British Council will continue to work with Aman and Palvision, while DFID will continue to fund BBC Media Action centrally.”
  • It is unclear how funding was distributed to the various partners.

In addition to these programs, the DFID also provides funding direct funding to politicized European organizations that also work in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. These include:

Recently completed projects funded by DFID earmarked for the West Bank and Gaza include:

Indirect DFID Funding via Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD):

• CAFOD is the “official Catholic aid agency for England and Wales and part of Caritas International.”
  • CAFOD received £8,798,000 in 2015, and £8,504,000 in 2014 from DFID.
• In 2015, CAFOD stated it was “particularly good” to be “working alongside” Islamic Relief Worldwide. It received £301,000 from IRW in 2015, up from £50,000 in 2014.  See above for information on IRW’s alleged relationship with terror organizations.
• In Israel, CAFOD gave four grants in 2015 for a sum of £100,000 (up from £66,000 in 2014). In the West Bank and Gaza, CAFOD gave three grants for a total of £68,000, down from £290,000 in 2014. Further information on these grants is unavailable from CAFOD.
• While CAFOD does not list NGO grantees in its financial documents, NGO Monitor research reveals that CAFOD has provided grants to a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict, including: Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine Israel (EAPPI), Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC), Yesh Din, Pax Christi, Bethlehem Bible College, and others.

CAFOD funded Projects include:

1. Ecumenical Accompaniment in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI)
   • Amount: £30,000 (2017)
     • EAPPI sends volunteers to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation,” who then return to their home countries and often promote anti-Israel BDS campaigns.
     • According to the UK Jewish Board of Deputies, EAPPI “helped to create a climate of hostility towards Israel within the Church of England.” Furthermore, “The EAPPI narrative is based on the experience of volunteers who spend several months living alongside Palestinians in the Territories, but less than a day in Israel, and then return to address audiences who know little or nothing about the reality of everyday life for those on both sides of the conflict.”
2. Addressing human rights abuses in the Palestinian Territory
   • Beneficiary: Yesh Din
   • Amount: £70,000 (2017)
3. Funding to Breaking the Silence (Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits)
   • General Support
   • Amount:163,118 NIS (2016-2017)
4. Empowering youth as peacebuilders in order to decrease the level of conflict in the community 
   • Amount: £55,000 (2015-2018)
   • Beneficiary: Wi’am Palestinian Conflict Resolution and Transformation Center
5. CAFOD-led activities – JLAC EIDHR 2016-17
   • Amount: £34,138 (2016-2019)
   • Beneficiary: Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC)
6. Legal assistance for Palestinians co-financing component 
   • Amount: £61,222
   • Beneficiary: JLAC
7. Youth engagement in Gaza
   • Amount: £53,262
   • Beneficiary: Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA)

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

• Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society
  • Amount: Undisclosed amount from the British Consulate-General (the UK is listed as a donor in the organization’s 2016 Annual Report).
  • According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an NGO that reports on incitement, “[in 2012] the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society organization, performed a puppet show for children in East Jerusalem to promote non-smoking. The educational message delivered by the puppets instructed children to replace cigarettes with machine guns.”
  • According to PMW, the organization hosted a 2014 soccer tournament named for PLO terrorist Abu Jihad.
  • According to PMW, the group organized an athletic tournament named for Ibrahim Al-Akari, a Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Israeli civilians in a November 2014 attack in Jerusalem.
•  In addition,  Israeli NGOs received over £1 million from  the British National Security Council (NSC) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2016-2017). These include Yesh Din, Gisha, Terrestrial Jerusalem, and Rabbis for Human Rights. NGOs based in the West Bank and Gaza received over (£270,000 2016).

Direct Funding to Israeli NGOs

Information for 2014 taken from annual reports submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits; 2015-2016 from quarterly reports submitted to the Registrar of Non-Profits.

• Yesh Din received nearly NIS 2.9 million (2014-2016) from the UK Embassy.
  • On May 6, 2016, Yesh Din’s legal advisor, Adv. Michael Sfard, appeared on behalf of the organization before the UN Security Council and presented data allegedly indicating a “lack of enforcement that enables the continuous violence against Palestinians, which is part of a long-term effort to dispossess them of their lands.” This is part of Yesh Din’s broader “lawfare” strategy of manipulating data about Israeli law enforcement and pressing “war crimes” cases against Israeli officials in foreign courts and in the International Criminal Court (ICC)
• Terrestrial Jerusalem received nearly NIS 1.6 million (2014-2016) from the MFA and the local consulate/embassy.
  • Promotes a one-sided approach to the conflict, placing sole blame for the failure of the peace process on Israel. The complexities of the situation in Jerusalem are erased, including illegal building and crime in Palestinian neighborhoods, damage to the Temple Mount as a result of illegal digging by the Waqf, and incitement to violence against Jews by extremist clerics.
• Gisha received over NIS 800,000 million (2014-2016) from the UK embassy.
  • Employs “apartheid” rhetoric and vocabulary based on international law and human rights to promote a partisan political and ideological agenda.
• Rabbis for Human Rights received over NIS 1.5 million (2014-2016) from the UK Embassy and other entities.
  • Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) is part of an ongoing campaign against the “crime” of evacuating Umm Al-Hiran, a Bedouin village that was the scene of violence to prevent demolitions approved by the Israeli High Court of Justice.
  • In November 2016, RHR rejected the Israeli High Court of Justice’s decision and called on activists to come to the village in order to resist its demolition.

Indirect UK Funding

Christian Aid

• In 2016/2017, Christian Aid received £42.1 million from governments and institutions, the majority of which came from DFID (£20 million); other major contributions came from Irish Aid £4.5 million and the European Commission £1 million.
  • According to Christian Aid, none of its DFID funding was earmarked for Israel of the OPT.
• Christian Aid assumes a highly biased and politicized approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its publications systematically ignore Palestinian responsibility in the conflict and minimize Israel’s right to self-defense.
• According to its annual report (2016/2017) Christian Aid provided £938,000 in grants to partners in “Israel/the occupied Palestinian territories.”
• Christian Aid does not reveal all of their partners, nor funding to the organizations. Current and former partner organizations include Zochrot, Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Al-Haq. Sabeel,  Adalah, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-I), Alternative Information Center (AIC), the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel  (EAPPI), Women’s Affairs Centre in Gaza, Culture and Free Thought Association, and Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
• In May 2016, Christian Aid released a video on “Christian Aid’s work in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.” The video provides a Palestinian narrative, and presents misleading and false information about the security barrier and water usage in the West Bank.
• On October 30, 2012, 22 NGOs, including Christian Aid, released a report, “Trading Away Peace: How Europe Helps Sustain Illegal Israeli Settlements.” The report repeats the BDS agenda, calling on the EU and national governments to wage political warfare through various forms of economic sanctions on Israel.

War on Want

• War on Want received over £260,000 from DFID in 2014-2015.
• Due to its highly inflammatory activities against Israel, Jewish Human Rights Watch filed a formal complaint in 2015 with the UK Charity Commission, claiming that there is “reason to believe that [War on Want] is working with terrorist organizations” and carrying out a campaign of “demonization of the state of Israel – that has no bearings on the objects of the charity.”
• In July 2017, War on Want published the report “Deadly Investments,” alleging that “UK banks and other financial actors facilitate and profit from Israel’s militarism, making them complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.” In the report, War on Want called “for banks to divest from and stop facilitating loans to companies that sell weapons and security services to Israel…call for the UK government to implement a two-way arms embargo on Israel.”

Oxfam GB

• Between 2014-2016, Oxfam GB received £130.4 million from the UK government. In fiscal year (FY) 2016, it received £50,161,000; in FY15, £45,913,000; in FY 2014, £34,322,000. This includes £400,000 in 2015 for “DFID Emergency WASH for Conflict-Displaced Families in Gaza OPTI.”
• Oxfam GB draws an immoral symmetry between Israeli self-defense and illegal attacks by terror organizations, and fails to acknowledge Hamas’ exploitation of the civilian population of Gaza as human shields. Its statements refer to the blockade of Gaza as the key impediment to peace, failing to mention that the purpose of Israel’s blockade is to prevent the illegal flow of weapons to Hamas and other terror groups.
• Oxfam GB funds Zochrot, Gisha, B’Tselem, and Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

British Council

The British Council does not list NGO grantees or funding amounts in its financial documents. NGO Monitor research reveals that the British Council has provided grants to a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict, including:

• Miftah received an undisclosed sum from the British Council.
  • Miftah utilizes anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric including “resistance fighters” to describe terror groups, and accuses Israel of perpetrating “massacres,” “cultural genocide,” “war crimes,” and “article written by Nawaf al-Zaru that repeated the antisemitic blood libel that Jews use Christian blood to bake Passover matzah.
• Aman Coalition includes Miftah and Al Mezan. Aman received an undisclosed sum from the British Council.
  • Aman accuses Israel of “stealing,” having “racist goals,” “Judaisation,” and “repeated attempts to ignite a sectarian religious conflict with the aim of controlling the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its precincts.”
• PalVision received an undisclosed sum from the British Council.
  • Promotes a 1948 agenda, BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) campaigns, and utilizes highly inflammatory rhetoric.
  • Regularly accuses Israel of “Judaization”; refers to Israel as “1948 lands” or “Palestine 1948” and to cities in Israel as “1948 occupied cities”; labels the security barrier as the “Apartheid Wall.”