The foreign ministry summoned the EU’s ambassador to Israel for a reprimand over the matter.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the European Union ‘’must stop any form of support for terrorists. “We demand the EU immediately stop all support, monetary or other, for any factor that supports terrorism directly or indirectly,” he said. “Experience teaches us that terrorism and any aid to terrorism will bring more terrorism.”
In 2019, the European Union issued new terms obligating Palestinian institutions to ensure that no beneficiaries of EU funding for their projects or programs are affiliated with groups listed on the European Union’s terrorist organizations list such as Hamas, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The clauses in EU contracts with Palestinian NGOs demand that contractors, subcontractors, those participating in their training workshops, and those obtaining financial support from them, exclude groups that appear on the EU terror list.
However, in an apparent contradiction with these clauses, Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorf, who is the head of the EU Representative Office to the West Bank and Gaza, sent a “clarification letter regarding the EU-funded contracts”1 to Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) – an umbrella organization of 135 Palestinian NGOs – in which he assured the Palestinians that membership in or affinity to a terrorist organization does not automatically prevent a person from being eligible to participate in EU-funded programs.
The letter, dated March 30, to the Palestinian NGO Network clarified that all EU-funded projects, including by Palestinian organizations, must follow EU law, such as a ban on funding terrorist groups. However, the letter points out that there are no Palestinian individuals on the EU’s “restrictive measures list” barring funds to terrorists, such that the NGOs would not be penalized if members of terrorist groups benefit from EU funding.
“While the entities and groups included in the EU restrictive lists cannot benefit from EU-funded activities, it is understood that a natural person affiliated to, sympathizing with or supporting any of the groups or entities mentioned in the EU restrictive lists is not excluded from benefiting from EU-funded activities, unless his/her exact name and surname…corresponds to any of the natural persons on the EU restrictive list,” the letter read.
The letter also stated that “the EU does not ask any civil society organization to change its political position towards any Palestinian faction or to discriminate against any natural person based on his/her political affiliation.”
According to The Jerusalem Post, Von Burgsdorff’s ‘’clarification’’ letter came after months of protests by Palestinian NGOs demanding that the EU erase a stipulation that aid only be sent to organizations with no ties to EU-designated terrorist groups.
Israel on Thursday issued a formal protest. “We view this letter with great severity. This is in violation of all our agreements with the European Union, and we intend to send a strong message to its representatives about this,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told The Times of Israel.
The foreign ministry summoned the EU’s ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, for a reprimand over the matter.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the European Union ‘’must stop any form of support for terrorists. “We demand the EU immediately stop all support, monetary or other, for any factor that supports terrorism directly or indirectly,” he said. “Experience teaches us that terrorism and any aid to terrorism will bring more terrorism.”
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute promoting democratic values and good governance, wrote a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, over the potential abuse of European Union funds by Palestinian terrorist organizations. ‘’We have been documenting for years how some Palestinian civil society organizations (CSOs) abuse their mandates in order to promote hateful and often violent agendas. This is especially seen with CSOs connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which both Israel and the EU regard as a terror organization,’’ NGO Monitor wrote.
A Swedish Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, MEP Charlie Weimers, called on the European Commission to take action and create legal obstacles to people affiliated with terrorist groups participating in activities that the EU funds.’’ ‘’Will you make sure that European taxpayers don’t fund terrorists,’’ he asked.
Weimars, who is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR), called on the European Parliament to request a new report on EU funding for the Palestinian Authority to detail how European taxpayers’ money is being used.
“The last report in 2013 documented corruption and misuse of aid,” he said.
European Jewish Association (EJA) Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin wrote a letter to EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell asking ‘’to clarify what is the EU position on the issue and whether we can ensure that all individuals involved in EU funded actions exclusively pursue the objectives and activities approved by the European Union.’’
‘’We fully appreciate the sensitivities and complexity of the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, but ‘natural persons,’ ie individuals, with ties to EU-designated terrorist organisationscannot be encouraged or allowed to participate in EU-funded activities as per our Council Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism,’’ he wrote.
Margolin noted that the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), to which
the letter of Ambassador Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff was addressed, has at least 5 organisational members with reported ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” (PFLP), a group listed by the EU as terrorist organisation.
The American Jewish Committee Transatlantic Institute called for an emergency hearing in the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and a comprehensive review of the standards and criteria by which the EU provides NGO funding in general and specifically to Palestinian groups.
“It is simply incomprehensible that the EU, whose declared goal is to facilitate a peaceful two-state solution, would use scarce taxpayer money to finance NGOs connected to terrorists–quite literally the enemies of peace,” said Daniel Schwammenthal, Director of the AJC’s EU office. “No amount of due diligence about the specific projects funded by EU money could possibly clean the EU from such a stain.”
He added: “It is shocking, to say the least, that the EU’s top representative in Ramallah told Palestinian NGOs that the idea that they were asked to break ties with terrorists to receive EU funding was nothing but ‘misinformation.’”
A spokesperson of the EU embassy in Israel, quoted by The Jerusalem Post, said: “There is no legal impediment to individuals who are not named in the restrictive measures list to participate in EU funded activities, except for representatives of listed organizations.’’
‘’The EU does not fund any activity that is related directly or indirectly to violence or incitement. EU support is subject to stringent and permanent monitoring and both ex-ante and ex-post verification,” he added.