PAX (Netherlands)

Activities

• According to its website, “PAX is a partnership between IKV (Interchurch Peace Council) and Pax Christi. In 2006, the two organisations merged under the name IKV Pax Christi. As of 29 January 2014, the new name of the organisation is PAX.”
• PAX claims that it “supports the work of Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, facilitates regional dialogue, and improves the human security of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the C areas.”

Political Advocacy

• PAX accuses Israel of “stealthy ethnic cleansing” and claims that “The Israeli government does not want a resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.”
• PAX, along with Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) and Oxfam Novib (and Cordaid until January 2016), formed the organization United Civilians for Peace, which advocates for BDS campaigns against Israel and partners with highly politicized NGOs.
  • In April 2016, Amin Abu Rashed, reportedly a Hamas operative, participated in a workshop organized by UCP on “Gaza/Palestine.”
  • In a 2013 film about the Israeli elections, UCP interviewed individuals from radical NGOs, including Eitan Bronstein Aparicio of Zochrot, Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, and Mohammed Zeitan of the Arab Association for Human Rights.
• According to PAX, “The opportunity to bring about a two-state solution is receding due to the continual expansion of settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. The settler movement is very influential in Israeli politics.”
  • PAX carries out lobbying and “advocates in Brussels, in Israel and in the Netherlands for international pressure regarding this policy.”
• PAX lists the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) as one of its programs.
  • The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was founded by the World Council of Churches (WCC). EAPPI sends volunteers to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation.” Upon completion of the program, the volunteers return to their home countries and churches where many engage in anti-Israel advocacy, including advocating for BDS campaigns in churches, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany, and other delegitimization strategies.
• In February 2022, PAX published a report titled “Does apartheid exist in Israel and occupied Palestine?” calling for the Netherlands to “commit to international investigations into apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine” and to “draw up a list of effective countermeasures against violations of international law by the State of Israel. This should include both measures which can be taken unilaterally and measures taken in EU context with like-minded countries.”
• In January 2022, PAX was a signatory on a letter to the Dutch Foreign Minister condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs, as terrorist organizations. According to the letter, “The agenda behind these campaigns is entirely clear. They seek to shield Israel from exposure and accountability for its grave violations of international law and human rights, enabling it to entrench its occupation, expand its annexation and deepen its apartheid in Palestine – and all of that with impunity.”
• In May 2018, published “Fragmented Jerusalem,” a publication that claims “the decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem has already had a highly detrimental effect, sparking both renewed Palestinian violence and a resumption of initiatives to expel Palestinians from their homes on disputed land in Sheikh Jarrah.”
  • “Fragmented Jerusalem” relies exclusively on reports and interviews with political advocacy NGOs Ir Amim, Emek Shaveh, and Terrestrial Jerusalem
• In June 2017, to commemorate 50 years since the Six Day War, PAX hosted a workshop for participants to “develop ideas in a co-creation process that can creatively and innovatively deal with the consequences” of the security barrier.

BDS Activities

• PAX supports a boycott of “products from settlements” and calls on citizens, the business community and investment companies in the Netherlands to cooperate with this international pressure by not buying products from Israeli settlements.
• In September 2021, PAX participated in a campaign titled “Don’t Buy into Occupation Coalition.” As part of the campaign, the coalition of NGOs published a report alleging to “investigate and expose the financial relationships between businesses involved in the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and European Financial Institutions (FIs).” The report called for European governments to “prohibit the import of illegal settlement products and services from entering European markets, and ban trade with and economic support for illegal Israeli settlements.”
  • Other pro-BDS NGOs involved in the campaign include Al-Haq, Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS), European Legal Support Center (ELSC), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), and The Rights Forum.
• In June 2020, PAX,  alongside Oxfam Novib and the Rights Forum, hosted a webinar on “understanding business activities related to illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a major human rights problem, and presenting ways to end the complicity of Dutch/European economic and political actors with the settlement economy.” The webinar endorsed the discriminatory UN database of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line, aimed at bolstering BDS campaigns against Israel.
• In April 2013, IKV PAX co-wrote a report, “Dutch Economic Links with the Occupation,” which “explores trade and investment relationships between companies located in Israeli settlement or profiting from the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights on the one hand, and the Netherlands on the other hand.” The report notes that “extensive use was made of the online database ‘Who Profits,’” an Israeli NGO that 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.
• Was a signatory to the 2012 report “Trading Away Peace,” which repeats the BDS agenda and calls on EU and individual European governments to wage political warfare through various forms of economic sanctions against Israel.