On December 22, 2017, following an internal investigation of its funding to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Danish Foreign Ministry announced that the “majority of Danish aid to the organizations, which was suspended in 2017, will not be paid.” The ministry also confirmed that that “donor cooperation [to the Ramallah-based NGO funding mechanism] will end at the end of the year 2017.”
Prof. Steinberg's open letter to the Dutch Foreign Minister, Mr. Halbe Zijlstra.
The Israeli government has prepared a list of 20 organizations that lead BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns, such that officials of these groups will not be allowed to enter Israel. Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not banning activists who seek to harm the country they desire to enter is the best policy approach or not.
In a video that has gone viral, a young Palestinian approaches two Israeli soldiers. She hits, prods and slaps them. She is trying to provoke a reaction that will be caught on camera and show the ugly violence of the Israeli army. The soldiers respond with professionalism and restraint, and ignore her attack.
Military Court Watch is an opaque organization that claims to work on issues related to ensuring children are protected under international law. In reality, MCW’s activities are part of a broader non-governmental organization (NGO) propaganda campaign that exploits concerns over children’s rights to demonize Israel. The NGO was founded and is led by Gerard Horton, who was previously involved with the Palestinian NGO Defense for Children International – Palestine, which promotes a similar agenda.
On November 14, 2017, US Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) proposed legislation “to prevent United States tax dollars from supporting the Israeli military’s ongoing detention and mistreatment of Palestinian children” – Bill van Esveld of Human Rights Watch (HRW) published an article on HuffPost in support of the bill. The opinion piece was only one example of HRW staffers promoting McCollum’s legislation.
On October 16, 2017, the Council of the European Union adopted the EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2016. The report makes several misleading, inconsistent, and grossly inaccurate claims, as well as disregards a number of EU norms and official stances. The publication fails to provide references or any verifiable sources, violating basic rules of evidence. The degree to which these sections copy from and rely on problematic reports by advocacy NGOs highlights the broader issue of EU outsourcing of responsibility for analysis and policy-making without oversight.
On November 17, 2017, the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon exposed that the Ramallah office of the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (HBS) was co-sponsoring a conference, “The 1987 Intifada: History and Memory,” in commemoration of “the thirtieth Anniversary of the First Palestinian Uprising against the Israeli Occupation.” The conference, scheduled to be held in Gaza on November 24-26 and in Beirut on November 28-30, will feature speakers that are former or current members of the Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organizations.
NGO Monitor research reveals that the NGO involvement in Congresswoman McCollum's legislation runs more deeply than endorsement from BDS NGOs. The entirety of the proposed bill is premised on factually inaccurate claims from anti-Israel advocacy NGOs, including direct quotes from DCIP’s “No Way to Treat a Child” 2016 report and website.
Legislation ostensibly addressing Israel and children’s rights, introduced in Congress yesterday by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), is the latest BDS strategy to demonize and impose sanctions on Israel, notes Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor.
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