European Union rejects $1.9 million grant application from the Palestinian NGO ‘BADIL’ due to its refusal to sign a waiver renouncing ties to Palestinian terror groups.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
The European Union rejected a huge funding request from the Palestinian NGO “BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights” after the Palestinian group refused to sign the required anti-terrorism clause, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs reported.
The EU grant would have been €1.7 million ($1.9 million) over three years for a project BADIL called “Mobilizing for Justice in Jerusalem,” which included documenting Israeli authorities supposed “violations” in Jerusalem.
BADIL is one of 130 Palestinian organizations that are refusing to sign the EU grant request forms that stipulates beneficiaries must refuse to transfer any EU aid to terrorist groups or entities. The Palestinian organizations refuse to do so, claiming that Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas are merely “political parties”.
The Ministry of Strategic Affairs (MSA) has been in a continuous dialog with the EU for the past year to alert both foreign and local EU representatives to stop giving European tax money to Palestinian NGOs that refuse to cut their ties to terror groups.
The MSA has been researching the ties shared between supposed Palestinian human rights organizations and terrorist groups and earlier this year released a report “The Money Trail” along with additional findings from organizations such as NGO Monitor.
The report detailed how EU institutions have awarded millions of Euros in financial aid to Palestinian civil society organizations that have ties to terrorist entities and promote illegal boycotts against Israel.
A second recent MSA report, “Blood Money,” revealed ties between terrorist organizations and various anti-Israel NGOs that promote BDS and work to delegitimize Israel. The report exposed how Palestinian terrorist organizations are using NGOs to whitewash their activities and members’ pasts to gain credibility and funds from Western countries.
“I congratulate the EU on taking a firm stance against the disingenuous campaign it faces on this issue,” said Minister of Strategic Affairs Orit Farkash-Hacohen. “The MSA has been working to ensure that the EU does not yield to the illegitimate demands of the involved Palestinian organizations, and continues to insist that EU taxpayer funds should not be used to fund NGOs with ties to terror. The EU’s recent refusal is another step in this right direction”.
Angered at losing a whopping 1.7 million Euros, BADIL posted an angry response on their website admitting that because they refused to accept the EU conditions BADIL “lost five of its main funding partners during 2019 and 2020.”
Not only did the anti-Israel organization double-down on its rejection of “any and all unacceptable conditional funding,” it called on all other Palestinian groups “not sign any contracts with any international donor that includes the so-called counter-terrorism clause.”
And in an unwitting move to help Israel, BADIL called on all other Palestinian groups that did get EU funding to “terminate them immediately and publicly announce this to our people.”