A group of bereaved families on Sunday staged a protest against the European Union over its funding of Israeli NGOs that defend terrorists and their families in Israeli courts.
Families from the Choosing Life Forum of Bereaved Families gathered in Bnei Brak outside the Dan region police headquarters, where bereaved mother Merav Hajaj had been summoned for interrogation for defacing the EU’s Ramat Gan office last September.
Hajaj, whose daughter Shir was murdered in a terrorist attack in 2017, spray-painted “EU GET OUT” on the building’s office door, spilled red paint on the floor, and posted a sign reading “Stop paying the killers of our children.”
She protested the EU’s funding of the far-left Israeli NGO HaMoked, which provides legal defense to terrorists and their families, including the terrorist who murdered Shir Hajaj.
Following the attack that murdered Shir Hajaj and three others, HaMoked petitioned Israel’s High Court of justice against demolishing the terrorist’s home and against stripping the citizenship of the terrorist’s family members who had known about the attack.
According to Im Tirtzu, which is accompanying the Choosing Life Forum, over the past five years the EU has provided roughly $2.8 million to HaMoked in both direct and indirect funding.
In addition, the EU has also provided some $2.88 million to the NGOs Adalah and The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which also defend terrorists in Israeli courts.
The protesters, who held signs reading “EU Shame On You!” and “The EU Pays Terrorists and Persecutes Bereaved Families,” included a number of bereaved families: Boaz Kokia, father of Ron Kokia; Brenda Lemkus, mother of murdered Dalya Lemkus; Rafi Levengrond, father of Kim Levengrond-Yehezkel; Vladimir Lubarsky, father of Ronen Lubarsky, and Dan Landau, father-in-law of Elad Salomon.
Before entering the police headquarters, Merav Hajaj said that “the one who should be under interrogation is the EU, which funds the murder of Jews and then funds the legal defense of terrorists who murdered our children.”
“The hypocrisy of the EU knows no bounds,” Hajaj added. “On the one hand, they encourage the murder of Jews and fund the defense of terrorists, including the terrorist who murdered my daughter, and on the other hand, they cry to the police when someone protests their blood money.”
“It is an embarrassment that Israel allows this to take place,” Hajaj said.
Alon Schvartzer, Director of Policy for Im Tirtzu, said that “it is an absurd situation in which the EU is allowed to fund radical NGOs that petition the courts on behalf of murderous terrorists.”
“The EU is trying to turn the victim into the assailant,” Schvartzer said,” but we will not allow them to succeed in their perverted attempt to conceal the truth. Im Tirtzu stands with the Hajaj family, and calls on our elected officials to move from words to actions and start combating these subversive actions by foreign governments that undermine Israeli sovereignty.”
