A new report from the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs details how several NGOs that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement have ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations.
According to the report, both Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) highlight the Palestinian terror groups that “have infiltrated and adopted seemingly benign NGOs in the Palestinian Authority, Europe, North America and South Africa, for the purpose of advancing their ideological goal: the elimination of the State of Israel.”
“Convicted terrorist operatives who have served prison sentences currently hold senior positions in NGOs which delegitimize and promote the BDS campaign against Israel,” the report states. “In these positions, they recruit fellow terrorist operatives to their NGOs. Israeli courts have determined that some of the terrorist operatives listed in this report pose a concrete security threat.”
The report adds that these terror groups are using NGOs as a way to provide “legitimacy” to their cause.
“To our understanding, terrorist organizations hope that in this way, they will co-opt civil society to push their governments to place pressure on Israel, with the aim of curtailing its military and economic freedom of action,” the report states. “Moreover, from the perspective of the terrorist organizations, building ties with civil society in the West creates an opportunity for receiving financial aid, which they could not otherwise receive due to sanctions imposed on them by Western countries.”
One such organization is the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which is “the umbrella organization” of “the worldwide BDS campaign,” that includes 28 Palestinian NGOs. BNC’s top coalition is the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces (PNIF), an organization that has senior officials from Hamas and the PFLP in its membership.
For instance, Ismail Radwan is the PNIF’s Hamas representative; he once referred to Jews as “apes and pigs,” according to the report.
The report’s findings on the BNC and its coalitions seemingly buttresses a Tablet report from June highlighting the BNC’s ties to terror.
The Strategic Affairs Ministry report also discusses the “significant ties with the PFLP” in the Addameer NGO that provides advocacy to Palestinian prisoners, seemingly confirming NGO Monitor’s similar reporting on the matter. Addameer took part in an August event on Barnard College’s campus.
Other NGOs highlighted in the report include the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, top NGO in Europe, that “has ties to Hamas operatives such as Muhammad Sawalha and Zaher Birawi” and the Palestinian Return Centre, whose conferences have featured speeches by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by phone and video.
Sawalha was part of Hamas’ Political Bureau from 2013-17; Birawi has been involved in Hamas’ flotillas against Israel, according to the report.
“Terrorist groups and the anti-Israel boycott campaign have united in their goal of wiping Israel off the map,” Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said. “Terrorist groups view boycotts as a complementary tactic to terror attacks. Following the exposure of over 100 links between terrorist groups and leading BDS organizations, I urge all governments and financial institutions to investigate the activities of these BDS organizations, and immediately end all funding and support which they provide to them.”
