ActionAid
Introduction
ActionAid is an “international organisation, working with over 15 million people in 45 countries.” Its head office is in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Profile
| Country/Territory | InternationalSouth Africa |
|---|---|
| Website | http://www.actionaid.org/ |
| Founded | 1972 |
| In their own words | “We focus on the people that others forget. People in poverty. People who face discrimination. People whose voices are ignored.” |
Funding
- In 2017, ActionAid International’s total income was €229.5 million; total expenses were €231.4 million, of which €1.2 million was spent on “Palestine.”
- Donors include Denmark, European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Nations. (See table below for further funding information.)
- In 2018, ActionAid Palestine received $529,753 from Denmark as part of ActionAid Denmark’s “Humanitarian Program” with Ma’an Development Center.
- In May 2018, Ma’an Development Center employee Ahmad Abdallah Aladini was killed in the violence on the Gaza border. Aladini was a “comrade” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. According to the PFLP, Aladini was active against the “Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip.”
- In 2015-2018, ActionAid Palestine was a local implementing partner on a €1 million grant from the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation for “Empowerment of women and youth in the C Area of West Bank and increase in the resilience of vulnerable communities.” Other cooperating organizations include Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Diakonia, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).
Activities
- ActionAid leads tours in Bethlehem and Hebron where participants are encouraged to “come face-to-face with the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” “illegal Israeli settlements,” and the “political struggles between locals and the Israeli occupation over land, water, and the building of the Israeli separation wall.”
Political Advocacy
- In April 2018, ActionAid was a signatory on a statement “condemning Israel’s unlawful killing of civilians” during the Gaza-border violence and called for an “independent and transparent investigation into the killing and injuring of civilians in the context of peaceful demonstrations, and for those responsible to be held to account.” The statement ignored the violent nature of the protests, which have consisted of an organized armed attack on the Israeli border and IDF positions, attempts to destroy and breach the border fence, and sustained arson, rocket, and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.
- In 2016, the ActionAid General Assembly approved a motion by ActionAid Palestine, ActionAid Denmark, and ActionAid UK to “challeng[e] corporates that profit from the illegal occupation of Palestine.” The motions approved efforts to “identify companies profiting from the occupation” and “undertake an audit of their relationships with the companies identified.”
ActionAid Greece
- ActionAid Greece provided NIS 55,302 to Who Profits in 2016-2017.
- Who Profits initiates international BDS campaigns, targeting Israeli and foreign banks, security companies, civil infrastructure facilities, and private companies. It supports BDS campaigns around the world in finding target companies. The website provides the option to “Report a Company,” and calls on the public “to identify companies that should be included in their database.” This database includes more than 500 Israeli and international businesses.
- In May 2017, Mattas Samiou, Campaign Manager for ActionAid Greece, called for the Israeli Football Federation to “stop its illegal activities immediately in Israeli settlements. And if that is not the case, we support the request of civil society organizations to FIFA to put an end to this unacceptable situation.”
- In December 2015, ActionAid Greece called for the Greek government’s “commitment to the immediate implementation of the European Labeling Directive for products originating from illegal Israeli settlements as a first step towards a total ban on imports.”
ActionAid Denmark
- While ActionAid Denmark claims that it “does not appeal to a boycott of Israeli products,” it does “encourage investors not to invest money in companies that violate international guidelines for corporate human rights liability by, for example, contributing to the illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
- ActionAid Denmark is one of the founders of DanWatch, which promotes BDS under the guide of “business ethics.” Specifically funds DanWatch’s project “Business on Forbidden Land,” focusing on Danish companies allegedly conducting business in Israeli settlements and opposing the marketing of Israeli goods produced in the West Bank.
- ActionAid Denmark’s “Facts [on] Children and Adolescents in Palestine” rely on a discredited March 2013 UNICEF report on juvenile justice in the military courts and false claims proffered by Defense for Children International –Palestine (DCI-P).In addition, the group also disregards the circumstances surrounding arrests, such as extreme violence including murder and attempted murder. (Read NGO Monitor’s reports “No Way to Represent a Child: Defense for Children International Palestine’s Distortions of the Israeli Justice System” and “The Origins of “No Way to Treat a Child” : Analyzing UNICEF’s Report on Palestinian Minors.”)
- In 2018, ActionAid Denmark launched a petition calling for the Danish Government to “Recognize Palestine as State!”
- In May 2018, Tim Whyte, Secretary-General of ActionAid Denmark, stated that it “should be clearly stated today on the packaging of certain Israeli exports if they are produced on occupied Palestinian lands – that is, produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”
- In 2017, ActionAid Denmark launched a petition titled “Stop Occupation of Palestine- 50 Years is Enough” calling to “Ensure that Danish pension funds are not invested in companies that contribute to the occupation and the illegal settlements” and “Ensure that no Danes’ tax crowns are placed in companies that help to support the illegal settlements.”
- In December 2015, following HeidelbergCement being blacklisted by Denmark’s largest pension fund, Troels Børrild, Senior Policy Advisor and CSR expert with ActionAid Denmark, stated that “Investing in companies that profit from the systematic human rights violations caused by the illegal Israeli settlements and the belligerent occupation is becoming toxic to investors… Too many investors and companies still fail to live up to their own policies in the case of businesses who profit from the Israeli occupation.”
- In May 2015, ActionAid Denmark called to end “any trade and cooperation with Elbit Systems.”
- In February 2015, Poya Pakzad, ActionAid Denmark’s’ political advisor, stated that the people of Gaza live in “an open prison.”
ActionAid Palestine
- In May 2018, in response to the U.S. moving its embassy to Jerusalem, Ibrahim Ibraigheth, ActionAid’s “Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territories,” stated that “By supporting Israel’s campaign to force the Palestinian people off their ancestral land, the U.S. is complicit in wide-ranging human rights violations. It’s no coincidence that this announcement comes the day before Palestinians remember the Nakba, when the newly established State of Israel carried out a systemic ethnic cleansing.”
- In May 2018, ActionAid Palestine encouraged Palestinian resistance stating, “We will keep going and resisting. The occupation of Palestine will fall, the way that the Berlin wall fell, and the apartheid system fell.”
- Co-signed an July 2016 campaign, calling on world leaders “to press the Israeli government to lift the blockade on Gaza,” while altogether omitting that the blockade was implemented in an effort to stop Palestinian terrorists from smuggling of weapons and rockets into Gaza that would later be used to target Israeli civilians.
Employees
- Ibrahim Ibraigheth, ActionAid’s “Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territories,” posted an image on his Facebook page glorifying Ayat al-Akhras, a suicide bomber who murdered two Israelis after detonating her explosive vest at a Jerusalem supermarket.
- Lina Abuaisha, an ActionAid Australia employee, has a picture of a Palestinian rioter hurling stones at Israeli security forces as her profile picture.
- Wisam Shweiki, a Project Manager at ActionAid International, posted an image on his Facebook profile glorifying Khader Adnan, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group who gained notoriety following repeated hunger strikes while in prison. The caption reads “For every gram you lose in weight, your honor increases by thousands [of grams].”
Partners
- Member of Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA).
- In 2017, launched a campaign titled “#OpenGaza 50 Years Of Occupation. 10 Years Of Illegal Blockade” stating that “collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza must end” and that “Gaza is an open air prison.”
- In August 2015, AIDA launched a campaign to “highlight the displacement of Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” The campaign included a press release of 31 international organizations calling on “world leaders to take urgent action to halt ongoing demolitions and hold the government of Israel accountable for the wanton destruction of Palestinian property and of projects funded by international aid in the occupied West Bank,” as well as two infographics on “Displacement and Replacement…Separating Palestinians Across the West Bank” and “20 Years of Talks- Keeping Palestinians Occupied.”
- Partners with the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), which 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 April 2017, PNGO called on the international community not to “use aid to undermine legitimate Palestinian resistance.” According to PNGO, “We reject all de-legitimization or criminalization of lawful Palestinian resistance, whether in form of allegations of terrorism, anti-semitism or otherwise… We call on all governments and aid providers to respect our right to lawful resistance, support Palestinian human rights defenders, and ensure equal, impartial and transparent access to funding for all.”
- In March 2016, as a member of Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), PNGO stated that “Israel’s current government, its most racist ever, has dropped all pretences of ‘enlightenment’ and ‘democracy’. This has helped to expose Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid to world public opinion like never before.”
- Also partners with the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC).
- PARC’s rhetoric includes accusations of “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “war crimes.”
- According to PARC’s “2014-2018 Strategic Plan,” one of PARC’s strategic goals is “Holding the occupation accountable towards Palestinian rights related to the agricultural sector and rural areas” by “Boycotting…Israelis’ settlement products” and “Supporting the cooperation and coordination with the boycott committees.”
2015-2017 Funding to ActionAid International (amounts in €)
| Donor | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denmark | 16,102,000 | 23,152,000 | 29,068,000 |
| European Union | 8,735,000 | 11,638,000 | 10.174.000 |
| United Kingdom | 5,762,000 | 11,242,000 | 9,950,000 |
| Australia | 3,005,000 | 1,955,000 | 3,173,000 |
| UN – World Food Programme | 3,861,000 | 2,674,000 | 3,847,000 |
| Italy | 925,000 | 1,561,000 | 1,662,000 |
| Ireland | 750,000 | 834,000 | 831,000 |
| The Netherlands | 2,215,000 | 4,700,000 | 5,016,000 |
| Norway | 1,285,000 | 1,376,000 | 1,539,000 |
| Sweden | 3,779,000 | ||
| All “other governments”* | 5,013,000 | 7,418,000 | 2,878,000 |
| All “other UN agencies” | 5,868,000 | 2,972,000 | 1,311,000 |
*ActionAid does not identify these “other governments” reflecting a lack of transparency and accountability