Report: French Fund Pro-BDS NGOs Possibly Tied to Terrorists

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On the eve of the Paris Middle East “peace conference,” NGO Monitor issued a report detailing how the French government funds numerous French, Israeli, and Palestinian organizations that support and promote the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns against Israel, even though such boycotts are illegal under French law.

The following is a small portion of the report, for the full report click here.

The French government supports the following French, Israeli, and Palestinian organizations involved in promoting BDS campaigns against Israel:

• French NGOs include:
  • AFPS: €139,550 in 2012-2014 from L’Agence francaise pour le développement (AFD); €36,500 in 2013, €53,000 in 2014, and €25,500 in 2015 from the French Foreign Ministry.
  • La Cimade: €4.3 million in 2015.
• Israeli NGOs include:
  • Alternative Information Center (AIC): €14,950 in 2013 from the Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme (National Consultative Commission for Human Rights); €19,970 in 2013, €4,975 in 2015, €12,960 in 2016 via CCFD-Terre Solidaire. (CCFD-Terre Solidaire is a private organization that receives French government funding and distributes grants to various NGOs.)
  • Israel Social TV: €5,000 in 2015 via CCFD-Terre Solidaire.
• Palestinian NGOs include (funded by AFD):
  • Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC): $329,888 from 2010 – 2013.
  • Maan Development Center: $343,578 from 2010-2013.
  • Culture and Free Thought Association: €770,032 in 2014.
  • Palestinian Hydrology Group: $394,200 from 2010-2013.

France also funds NGOs with alleged ties to the PFLP terror organization:

• France has provided both direct government support (through AFD and the French Consulate in Jerusalem) and indirect support via third party NGOs to organizations with alleged ties to the PFLP terror organization. The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the U.S., EU, Canada, and Israel. The PFLP is involved in suicide bombings, hijackings, and assassinations, among other terrorist activities targeting civilians.
• Organizations receiving French funding with alleged PFLP ties include:
  • Alternative Information Center (AIC): AIC is an Israeli NGO that supports BDS campaigns against Israel and accuses the State of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid-like discrimination.” AIC has received €39,481 in direct and indirect French governmental support since 2013. Despite its anti-peace advocacy and ties to the PFLP terror group (outlined below), in 2012, the NGO received the human rights award (Prix des Droits de l’Homme de la République française – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité) from the French government for its “contribution to the defense of human rights.”
    • AIC’s co-director Michel Warchawski, who was a leader of the anti-Zionist Trotskyite organization “Matzpen,” was jailed in the 1990s for publishing an informational pamphlet for the PFLP terror group.
    • AIC’s other co-director, Nassar Ibrahim, is also the former editor of El Hadaf – the PFLP’s weekly publication.
    • AIC Board of Directors member (2008) Rifat Odeh Kassis has links to multiple NGOs with PFLP ties and was arrested and imprisoned several times by Israel.
  • Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC): The NGO utilizes highly biased and demonizing rhetoric, accusing the “Israel occupation forces” of “continuing its brutal and immoral offensive [2014] war on Gaza” and of an ongoing “policy of collective punishment in disregard for the international law and humanitarian law.” From 2012-2014, UAWC conducted a €354,489 project in the “Hebron governorate.” The main funders of the project were: €177,000 from the French Ministry of Environment, Energy, and Sea via the Water Agency Rhône Mediterranean Corsica; €31,000 from the Consulate General of France in Jerusalem; and €93,176 from the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes- Côte d’Azur.
    • UAWC was founded in 1968 by members of the PFLP and is an official PFLP “affiliate.”
    • USAID identifies UAWC as the “agricultural arm” of the PFLP.
  • Al-Haq: Al-Haq is a leader in anti-Israel “lawfare” and BDS campaigns. In 2015, The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development provided Al-Haq with €27,842 (line 1199) to support its activities in the “private sector and human rights.”
    • Al-Haq’s General Director, Shawan Jabarin, has alleged ties to the PFLP terrorist organization and as such has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan.
    • In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected Jabarin’s appeal to go abroad stating that “The objections by security forces are all rooted in security concerns based on classified information, showing that the petitioner is a senior activist in the PFLP terror group….the current petitioner is apparently acting as a manner of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, acting some of the time as the CEO of a human rights organization, and at other times as an activist in a terror organization which has not shied away from murder and attempted murder, which have nothing to do with rights…”