The 2017-2021 Joint Strategic Framework for Belgian aid to Palestinians, coordinated by Oxfam Solidarity, M3M, SolSoc and APEFE, commits its signatories to promoting a variety of anti-Israel campaigns, through advocacy and lobbying in Belgium and the EU.
In May 2020, Oxfam released a “briefing note” on “Violence and impunity in the West Bank during the COVID-19 pandemic.” In reality, Oxfam took pre-existing, misleading, distorted, outdated, and sloppy research, and artificially relabeled it “COVID-19 and annexation” in order to push a BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) agenda.
In April 2019, the Essex Business and Human Rights Project (EBHR) at Essex University (UK) and Norwegian People's Aid published “Investor Obligations in Occupied Territories: A Report on the Norwegian Government Pension Fund. The report exemplifies how not to conduct human rights due diligence in situations of conflict and primarily reflects the ideological agendas of its pro-BDS backers.
According to Law professor Eugene Kontorovich, Whitson is an active supporter of groups that support Armenian settlements in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, while pursuing rabid campaigns against Jewish communities in the West Bank. This promotion of Armenian settlement products and groups directly contradicts HRW’s assertions regarding Israel.
On December 10, 2019, based on research by Professor Eugene Kontorovich and the Kohelet Policy Forum, the Jerusalem Post published an expose on donations to the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR) from companies operating in settlements. ECFR has been one of the leading BDS advocates in Europe under the guise of a so-called “differentiation” policy.
On December 12, 2019, the Belgian Catholic NGO Pax Christi Vlaanderen (Flanders) will award its “ambassador for peace” prize to Brigitte Herremans, a leading anti-Israel activist and former employee of the BDS-supporting organization Broederlijk Delen. The event is scheduled to be held at Kazerne Dossin “a transit camp from which Belgian Jews and Romani were sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust.” The selection of this venue draws a false equivalence between Nazi war crimes and Israeli policy, a violation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
Since the beginning of 2019, French organizations that promote an anti-Israel agenda have been lobbying French elected officials to oppose a “motion for a resolution to combat anti-Semitism.” Some of these groups receive French government funding.
Itai Reuveni discusses the European Court of Justice's decision to label products manufactured in Israeli settlements.
On March 13, 2019, Amnesty International posted, “Think Twice: Can companies do business with Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories while respecting human rights?” The Amnesty campaign coincides with the anticipated release of the UN Human Rights Council blacklist of “settlement” businesses and is designed to bolster this UN initiative singling out Israel for attack.
In January 2019, Amnesty International published a report on "The Tourism Industry and Israeli Settlements" that denies Jewish connections to historical sites – including in the Old City of Jerusalem – and in essence faults Israel for preserving Jewish historical and cultural heritage, as well as places that are holy to Christians.