60 international groups call Netherlands to resume funding to Palestinian NGO outlawed by ‘Israel’

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- 60 civil society organisations based in Europe and elsewhere, have called the Dutch government to resume its funding to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), one of the six Palestinian NGOs controversially outlawed by ‘Israel’ in 2021.

The 60 international civil society organisations sent a letter on January 26, 2022, to Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, calling to “resume Dutch funding for UAWC” and rejecting “Israel’s designation of Palestinian NGOs”

On January 5, 2022, the Dutch government announced it formally ended its funding to the UAWC, saying “the Netherlands will no longer fund the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, or transfer the organization the last tranche of an already budgeted Dutch grant.”

On 19 October 2021, Israeli War Minister, Benny Gantz, designated six leading Palestinian human rights and civil society groups as “terrorist organizations” under Israel’s domestic Counter-Terrorism (Anti-Terror) Law (2016).

The Israeli War Minister office claimed that the six groups were “part of a network of organisations operating undercover in the international arena” on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian resistance group, which was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in 1997 by the US State Department.

The six groups are: Addameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC).

The Israeli military commander also outlawed all six groups under the 1945 Emergency (Defense) Regulations, declaring them “unlawful associations”.

Several UN human rights experts, civil society and development organizations, academics and more from around the world have condemned, over the past months, Israel’s designations, standing in solidarity with the six Palestinian groups and increasing their support for the Palestinian cause.

The Dutch government’s review found no evidence that the UAWC had done so.

“The external review shows that no evidence has been found of financial flows between the UAWC and the PFLP. Nor has any proof been found of organization unity between the UAWC and the PFLP or of the PFLP’s providing direction to the UAWC,” wrote Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Knapen and Foreign Trade Minister Tom de Brujin in a joint letter.

The external investigators did, however, find some overlap between the two organizations’ membership.

“There were ties at the individual level between UAWC staff and board members and the PFLP for some considerable time. The great number of UAWC board members with roles in both organizations gives particular cause for concern,” the two Dutch ministers wrote.

The external investigators hired by the Dutch government determined that the UAWC was likely unaware of members’ political affiliation.

But in their letter, the Dutch diplomats said it was “reasonable to assume” that the organization knew of board members’ PFLP ties.

The Netherlands had already suspended its funding for the nonprofit in July 2020 after two UAWC employees were arrested by ‘Israel’ for alleged involvement in a bomb explosion near an Israeli settlement. Both Abed al-Razeq Farraj (57) and Samer Al-Arbid (45) have suffered physical and psychological torture during interrogation.

The investigation by the Dutch determined that their funding had helped pay for the two employees’ salaries, although neither had managed Dutch-backed development projects.

The UAWC is considered as one of the largest agricultural development institutions in Palestine as it was established in 1986 by a group of agronomists. When established, UAWC depended on volunteers completely and formed agricultural committees in the West Bank and Gaza to set the priorities of farmers and help the Union in implementing its programs and community activities. According to its director, some 25,000 Palestinian families benefit from the group’s work.

In their letter, the 60 groups said that the Dutch government “decision to end its funding for UAWC comes at the most vulnerable hour for Palestinian civil society” after Israel’s oulawing of the six leading Palestinian NGOs.

“This designation is the culmination of years of aggressive campaigns by the Israeli government and groups affiliated with it, relentlessly targeting Palestinian civil society,” they added.

“The agenda behind these campaigns is entirely clear. They seek to shield Israel from exposure and accountability for its grave violations of international law and human rights, enabling it to entrench its occupation, expand its annexation and deepen its apartheid in Palestine – and all of that with impunity.”

The groups also noted in the letter that such “campaigns amount to political persecution, inflicted on an oppressed population, in order to break its lawful resistance against a foreign occupation characterized by decades of collective dispossession and imprisonment.”

For many years, the 60 internatioanl NGOs said, the “Netherlands has been a leading partner and donor of Palestinian civil society in its struggle for freedom, dignity and justice.”

“It was one of four European countries funding the International Human Rights and International Law Secretariat – until this vital civil society mechanism disintegrated in 2018 after years of Israeli attacks and smear campaigns.”

The groups noted that the Dutch government’s decision to end its funding for UAWC marks “a sharp break with this principled engagement and severely harms your country’s credibility and standing vis-à-vis Palestinian civil society.”

The groups called the Dutch government to “widen and increase your political and financial support for Palestinian civil society, which faces an existential crisis, endangering decades of hard work and investments in promoting human rights and providing humanitarian assistance in Palestine.”

They also called it to “firmly rejects” Israel’s designation of the six Palestinian NGOs as “terrorist organisations.”