Activities

• Until 2014, the NGO Development Center (NDC) managed pooled finances for Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands for their Human Rights/Good Governance (HR/GG) program. (See NGO Monitor’s reports on the previous counterproductive funding via the NDC here and here.)
• In 2014, NDC was replaced by NIRAS and Birzeit University, which managed the government funding under a similar framework titled the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (“Secretariat”). In December 2017, the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat ceased support and funding for NGOs. In June 2018, the Secretariat presented its final report and ended its activities. As of August 2018, the Secretariat website is no longer functional. For more information on the Secretariat, read NGO Monitor’s report “Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat: Abusing Public Funds to Perpetuate Conflict.”
• In 2019, Sweden resumed funding to the NDC for a Human Rights Fund Programme,“through which financial support shall be granted to civil society organisations” (see below for details).

NDC Funding to Politicized NGOs

• The NDC provides funding to number of highly biased and politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict including the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), Health Work Committees(HWC), Al Mezan, Al-Haq, Defence for Children international -Palestine (DCI-P), BADIL, Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation (PYALARA), and East Jerusalem YMCA. Some of the organizations receiving NDC  funding promote antisemitic rhetoric and have reported links to the  Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
  • The Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) is an umbrella organization comprising 142 Palestinian NGO member organizations, many of which support BDS campaigns and some with ties to the PFLP terror group. In January 2020, PNGO vehemently opposed a new requirement in European Union grant contracts with Palestinian NGOs that prohibits grantees from working with and funding organizations and individuals designated on the EU’s terror lists.  PNGO claimed that Palestinian terrorist organizations are “political parties.”
    • Multiple PNGO officials have ties to terrorist organizations, and at least five PNGO members have ties to EU-designated terror organizations, including through their employees and/or board members who are directly involved in activities and programs.
    • Walid Hanatsheh (Abu Ras) is listed as a PNGO board member on behalf of a PFLP-linked NGO, Health Work Committees (HWC), and is the HWC finance and administration manager. Hanatsheh is on trial for allegedly being the leader of PFLP “military” operations and commanding the PFLP terror cell that carried out the August 2019 bombing attack. According to the indictment against him, Hanatsheh bankrolled the bombing. Following his arrest, the PFLP labeled Hanatshe a “leader in the Popular Front.”
  • Numerous Health Work Committees(HWC) staff members, founders, board members, general assembly members, and senior staff members have ties to the PFLP terror group. For more information on HWC’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Health Work Committees’ Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”
    • Shatha Odeh, HWC “General Director,” attended a memorial event organized by the PFLPthat centered on PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna, who, according to information posted by the PFLP, “contributed to the establishment” of several PFLP-affiliated NGOs, including UHWC, UAWC, and Addameer. The hall was decorated with PFLP paraphernalia.
  • A number of Al Mezan officials and employees have links to the PFLP and Hamas. Additionally, Al-Mezan officials and board members speak at PFLP events, and many have posted material on their social media accounts promoting terror groups or utilizing antisemitic imagery and rhetoric. For more information on Al Mezan’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Al Mezan Center For Human Rights’ Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”
  • Numerous individuals with alleged ties to the PFLP have been employed and appointed as board members at Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P). For more information on DCI-P’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Defense for Children International – Palestine’s Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”
  • Shawan Jabarin, Al-Haq General director, has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan. In 2007, the Israeli High Court referred to Jabarin as a “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” (NGO Monitor’s unofficial translation of the ruling by the Israeli High Court of Justice – June 20, 2007).
    • In May 2019, Jabarin attended a memorial event organized by the PFLP that centered on PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna. See more on this event above.
  • BADIL was founded to promote a Palestinian “right of return” and 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 prize 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.
  • In January 2019, Mustafa Barghouti, president of PMRS, participated in a conference organized by the PFLP titled “The crime of normalization and ways of confrontation,” which was held “in honor of the 11th anniversary of the departure of its founder, Dr. George Habash.” During the conference, Barghouti presented a paper on “The role of parties and factions in promoting the boycott concept.”
• Revealing a significant lack of transparency, the NDC Human Rights Fund Programme does not provide grant information or amounts it provides to NGOs .
• While the NDC claims that it a “Palestinian non-profit, non-governmental organization supporting Palestinian NGOs,” it also provides funding for Israeli NGOs Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Gisha and Yesh Din.
  • Breaking the Silence makes sweeping accusations based on anecdotal, anonymous, and unverifiable accounts of often low-ranked soldiers. These “testimonies” lack context, are politically biased, and erase the complicated reality in the West Bank. In addition, they reflect a distorted interpretation of the conflict in order to advance the political agenda of Breaking the Silence activists, thereby fueling the international campaigns against Israel.
  • B’Tselem actively pursues its political agenda of “international consequences” and international pressure on Israel via lobbying of the UN and European governments.
  • Gisha employs “apartheid” other international legal rhetoric to promote a partisan political and ideological agenda.
  • Yesh Din is central to the allegations that Israeli investigative and court systems are unable or unwilling to investigate allegations of wrongdoing and is part of a wider “lawfare” strategy of pressing “war crimes” cases against Israeli officials in foreign courts and in the International Criminal Court (ICC). These campaigns use faulty information and skewed statistics to promote their political claims.
• In 2018-2021, the NDC managed a $17 million project funded by the World Bank (WB) through the International Development Association (IDA).
  • The project, “Gaza Emergency Cash for Work and Self-Employment Support” aims to “provide grants to selected NGOs to hire young people who have been unemployed for at least one year.”
  • The project’s financial statement lists several NGO grantees that, according to the available evidence, have links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is designated as a terror group by the US, the EU, Canada, and Israel. Additionally, the Islamic University in Gaza (IUG), another grantee, is reported to be “the main bastion” of Hamas in Gaza.
    • Union of Health Work Committees (committed amount: $839,368)
      • UHWC is identified by Fatah as an official PFLP “affiliate” and by a 1993 USAID-engaged audit as the “the PFLP’s health organization.” For more information on UHWC’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Union of Health Work Committees’ Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”
    • Ma’an Development Center (committed amount: $706,722)
      • In May 2019, MA’AN Director General Sami Khader attended a memorial event organized by the PFLP that centered on PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna. The hall was decorated with PFLP paraphernalia.
      • 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 PFLP terror group.
    • Red Crescent Society for Gaza Strip (committed amount: $285,038)
      • The PFLP organizes events with RCS4GS.
        • In February 2019, RCS4GS hosted a memorial service organized by the PFLP for Maher Yamani, a PFLP “founder” and a “member of the Central Committee and one of its most prominent military commanders.” Yamani “coordinated special operations…in particular the operation against an aircraft of the Israeli company El Al in July 1968 in Greece.” “Fighters” of the PFLP’s Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades and “civil society representatives” attended the event.
      • Bakr Abu Safiya, a RCS4GS board member, is referred by the PFLP as “a member of the Central Committee” (February 2020).
    • The Islamic University in Gaza (committed amount: $1,011,800)
      • The Islamic University in Gaza (IUG) is referred as “the main bastion of Hamas in the Gaza Strip” by the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida A Chronicle of Higher Education article from December 29, 2008, further noted that IUG “was established by the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and has emerged as a training ground for the political and spiritual leadership of Hamas.”

Political Advocacy

Support for BDS

• In a document funded by the French government, NDC outlines “strategic objectives” of Palestinian NGOs, which include: “BDS Campaign[s]”; “Campaign[s] for Academic and Cultural Boycott”; “Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign[s]”; “Anti-normalization Campaign[s]”; and “Development of a unified NGO strategy for international advocacy.”

NGO Code of conduct and “Anti-normalization”

• In 2008, NDC “launched” and funded the “Palestinian NGO Code of Conduct,” which demands that “The signatory NGOs also undertake to be in line with the national agenda without any normalization activities with the occupier, neither at the political-security nor the cultural or developmental levels.”
  • In 2015, a second edition the Code of Conduct was released that maintained demands for “anti-normalization.”
• According to the NDC “by end of 2019, 620 NGOs have signed up”

Human Rights Fund Programme

• According to the NDC, its Human Rights Fund Programme is guided primarily by Sweden’s development Cooperation Strategy for Palestine and “provide[s] core support to organisations that can demonstrate having the competence and capacity to contribute to real and sustainable change towards achieving the overall objective of the programme.”
• In 2018-2020, the Swedish international Development Agency (SIDA) provided $7.19 million to “Human Rights Programme Palestine.”
• Neither the NDC nor Sweden provides the names of NGO grantees or the amounts received. In response to a Freedom of Information request made by NGO Monitor (on file), SIDA acknowledged funding to Al Mezan Al-Haq, Badil, Defence for Children – Palestine Chapter (DCI-P), Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Gisha, and Yesh Din.

2019-2020 Funding to Politicized NGOs (amounts in NIS)