August 29th, 2007 by beccawitz | Category: EU, Gisha, UN

The provisional agenda has been released for the EU/UN “International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace,” to begin August 30 in Brussels. The agenda, which was kept secret for weeks, includes presentations by representatives of some of the most radical, anti-Israel NGOs operating in the conflict. Many, if not all, of these NGOs are funded with tax dollars by several European governments and the EU under the auspices of the EU’s “Partnership for Peace” program. Below is just a sampling of the presenting NGOs:

• The PLO Negotiations Affairs Department (NAD), funded by the British and Danish governments, utilizes the demonization rhetoric of the Durban strategy to present inflammatory positions. In its “fact sheets”, Jewish settlements are categorically referred to as “colonies”; Israeli checkpoints designed to prevent Palestinian terror attacks are said to “highlight Israeli Apartheid”; and Palestinians are said to be “caged” in “isolated ghettos” or “open-air prisons” in the West Bank. The NAD drastically misrepresents the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict claiming that in 1948, “Israel ignored the [UN] Partition Plan and invaded and occupied 84% of Jerusalem.” In its section on the “Israeli Wall”, the NAD omits the context of Palestinian terror and instead argues that, “Israel’s strategy continues to be to take as much Palestinian land as possible while militarily encaging as many Palestinians as possible, all in an attempt to continue Israel’s colonization and theft of Palestinian territory.”
• The Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign coalition includes many government funded NGOs such as War on Want, PENGON, PARC, and Ma’an. This NGO coalition claims its calls for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel “are firmly grounded in the context of the struggle against Israeli Colonization, Apartheid and Occupation, and for Palestinian rights and self-determination. None of the above demands can be compromised in the Campaign’s work.”
• The Israel Coalition Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) , funded under the auspices of the EU’s “Partnership for Peace”, promotes the “Durban strategy” of demonizing Israel, distorts international law and opposes EU peace policies. ICHAD’s leader, Jeff Halper, tours the world using EU donations promoting anti-Israel boycotts and appearing with Naim Ateek who heads the NGO Sabeel which uses anti-Semitic themes, such as referring to “the Israeli government crucifixion system”.
• The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), regularly describes Israel’s policies as “apartheid” and accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and collective punishment. In a press release of April 24, 2006, PCHR described Palestinian terrorists as “activists”, and in a “special report” of September 2006 talked of Israeli army operations against “Palestinian resistance activists.” PCHR is funded by the EU, Ireland, Denmark, and Norway.
• The BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights, is one of the most active NGOs in promoting extreme Palestinian political positions in the context of the conflict against Israel, including campaigning against the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, openly declaring the goal of using the “right of return” to “alter the demographic balance in Israel so much that it would destroy Israel’s Zionist, exclusionist character… ” Badil has received funding from Ireland, Norway, Canada, and Switzerland.
• Trocaire, the official development agency of the Irish Catholic Church, and heavily subsidized by the Irish government, is a partner with Badil in its 2007 “Call to Action” which plans, among other activities, to “[e]nlist journalists to organize a targeted campaign to expose the lies of AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League and to expose the Jewish and Zionist community’s double standards regarding Nakba & Occupation.”
• Alternative Information Center is funded by the Irish government via Christian Aid. AIC publications include “News from Within” which “challenges the Jewish and Zionist nature of the State of Israel” and “Ethnic Cleansing in the Negev,” and has sponsored programs including the “Apartheid Law Seminar”.
• Gisha, an Israeli NGO funded by the Dutch and Norweigian governments, issues reports and files legal actions in Israeli courts that promote a selective human rights agenda, using “apartheid” rhetoric and stripping the context of Palestinian terror.

Other speakers include:

• Pierre Galand, European Chairman of the Coordinating Committee for NGOs on the Question of Palestine (ECCP), a Brussels based association of NGOs. Galand is a frequent disseminator of anti-Israel rhetoric at the UN and other international fora and a main proponent of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.

• Clare Short, British MP, spoke at the UK Parliament in June 2007, that she was “shocked by Israel’s blatant, brutal and systematic annexation of land, demolition of Palestinian homes, and deliberate creation of an apartheid system by which the Palestinians are enclosed in four bantustans, surrounded by a wall, with massive checkpoints that control all Palestinian movements in and out of the ghettos.”

Rather than “support[ing] Israeli/Palestinian Peace,” the presenters described above make clear that this conference will do nothing more than reinforce the most inflammatory, anti-Israel rhetoric including accusations of “apartheid”, “ethnic cleansing”, and “brutality”. It is time for the EU and several of its member states to be called to account as to how this conference and continued funding for the activities of the attendee NGOs can possibly be considered to be promoting peace.

To see the conference agenda in full, click here