Stichting Kinderpostzegels funding for DCI-PS and HLT

Background

• Stichting Kinderpostzegels Nederland, (Children’s Stamps Foundation –Kinderpostzegels-SKP) is a children’s charity “for children, by children.”
• Identifies itself as an “Independent organization which means it is not tied to governments or economic or political movements,” which “considers projects from organizations irrespective of race, color, religion or political conviction…The focus of attention is always the interest of the children themselves.”
• In 2008-2011, SKP donated €137,000 to two Palestinian anti-Israel political advocacy NGOs: Defense for Children International – Palestine Section (DCI-PS) and Holy Land Trust (HLT). These groups promote boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns, against Israel, falsely accuse Israel of apartheid, and erase all Palestinian responsibility for the protracted conflict. (See below.)

Funding

• SKP receives funding from the Dutch government (2010/2011: €740,000) and the Friends of the Lottery (2010/2011: €200,000). The organization also raises money from private individuals by selling postage stamps.

Funding for anti-Israel NGOs

• DCI-PS lists SKP as a financial contributor. In 2009-2011, SKP donated, €30,000 annually to DCI-PS for a project titled “program against child abuse through education, direct assistance and political lobbying.” (In 2011 the project title was shortened to “program against child abuse.”) In 2008, SKP donated €25,000 for a “campaign to combat violence against children.”
• SKP donated €22,000 to Holy Land Trust in 2011 for “training in music therapy for children in the West Bank.”

Defense for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI-PS)

• DCI-PS actively promotes boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns, is a signatory  of the “Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS” (2005), and lobbies the UN and the EU to promote its anti-Israel agenda. On its website, DCI-PS cites BDS as a “suggested action” of “ways you can get involved” in helping “Palestinian Child Prisoners.”
• In addition to other anti-Israel demonization, DCI-PS published a poster referring to Israeli security measurements as “a central pillar of the Apartheid-like system of discrimination in place in these areas.”
• DCI-PS published distorted casualty statistics regarding the Gaza war (December 2008 – January 2009), claiming that 352 children died “as a direct result of Israel’s military offensive.” In contrast, other politicized groups claimed that 313 children were killed. Additionally, some on DCI-PS’ list, such as Ibrahim Mostafa Fraih Sa’id and Ibrahim Abed al-Rahim Rajab Suliman, were identified by B’Tselem and Palestinian Center for Human Rights as combatants.

Holy Land Trust (HLT)

• Supports BDS, including signing a petition in May 2005 calling for the academic boycott of Israel and endorsing the 2005 “Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS.”
• Supports the Kairos Palestine document, which calls for BDS against Israel, denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel in theological terms, and blames Israel solely for the continuation of the conflict.
• The founder and director or HLT Sami Awad, has minimized Israel’s legitimate security needs as a “manipulation” of the fear of another Jewish Holocaust. In 2010, in a speech at the “Christ at the Checkpoint” Conference, he stated that “the [Israeli] soldier now, who’s gone through that trauma experience [of visiting Auschwitz] now is trained in this weaponry all of a sudden is also put at a checkpoint inside the West Bank, between Palestinian areas.”