Thread: Report: U.S. Government Cash Funds Anti-Israel Groups

The Obama administration has perfected the use of NGO's(Non Government Organizations) to fund the leftist agenda.
Report: U.S. Government Cash Funds Anti-Israel Groups

Group calls for improved transparency for taxpayer dollars

BY: Natalie Johnson
June 28, 2016 5:01 am

The U.S. government funnels millions of taxpayer dollars into groups that promote anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views, according to a forthcoming report from a watchdog for non-governmental organizations.

Determining the exact dollar amount is impossible to total due to a lack of transparency and widespread discrepancies in federal spending databases, the group NGO Monitor found in a new study that will be published later this month.
U.S. grants have gone to organizations that have called for the international community to divest from Israel, rationalized terrorist attacks against the Jewish state, and compared Israelis to Nazis.

Naftali Balanson, the chief of staff at NGO Monitor, said groups that promote policies that directly contradict U.S. government support for peace efforts should be disqualified from receiving funding.

“We encourage the end of all funding, both directly and indirectly, for NGOs that participate in the demonization and delegitimization campaigns,” Balanson said during a meeting last week on Capitol Hill.

“When you have organizations that are receiving money ostensibly for peace, human rights, and democracy but they refuse to work with Israeli partners, they refuse to meet with Israelis, and push for boycotts, those are in direct contradiction and seems to be a complete waste of taxpayer money,” he added.

The NGO Monitor report cited Jewish Voice for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, and the New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund as groups that engage in anti-Israel rhetoric.

The National Endowment for Democracy, which provides more than 1,200 NGO grants, is funded largely by Congress and is dependent on continued support from the White House.

The organization pours taxpayer money into the Human Rights and Democracy Media Center, which accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” “targeting innocent people,” and calls it the “state of terrorism,” and an “enemy” of women, according to the report.
Another group that receives grants from the endowment, the Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights, is cited in the report as referring to terrorists as “martyrs” and refers to the Palestinian “right to resist” through measures of terrorism.

A spokesman for the National Endowment for Democracy did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Balanson said the United States needs to enhance transparency by creating a spending database that provides detailed information on approved grants so that taxpayers know where their money is being spent. He said the government also needs to implement a rigorous evaluation system so that U.S. grants are not sent to groups promoting delegitimization.

“The U.S. should be using its money to encourage peace, more cooperation, and the reduction of tensions,” he said.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/ngo-bias-palestinians-endangers-israel/

Report: UN Office Coordinates Millions in Donations to Anti-Israel Groups

by TheTower.org Staff | 04.07.16 8:01 am

A United Nations office has coordinated the donation of millions of dollars to NGOs that are highly critical of Israel, and has helped those groups disseminate their information, a new report by the watchdog group NGO Monitor has documented.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is responsible for “bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies,” as it describes on its website. In practice, its office that focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (OCHA-oPt) has helped convene and fund numerous NGOs that almost uniformly are critical of Israel.
This year, OCHA-oPt requested $571 million from international donors to support controversial NGOs, including Islamic Relief Worldwide, which was outlawed by Israel in June 2014 for its alleged role in funneling money to the terrorist organization Hamas; multiple organizations like Norwegian Peoples Aid and the Ma’an Development Center that support and mobilize anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns; and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a leader of anti-Israel “lawfare” campaigns. The UN organization’s 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan allegesthat “the primary responsibility [for the conflict] lies with the occupying power”—Israel. To solve this, OCHA wrote, its partners “will prioritize victims seeking accountability for [international law] violations.” But Israeli victims of Palestinian violence will not have access to these services, the report noted.

OCHA-oPt publishes scheduled reports, fact sheets, and other publications that “promote a narrative based solely on Palestinian victimization and Israeli aggression, while minimizing Palestinian terror, rejectionism, incitement, and legitimate Israeli national security concerns,” NGO Monitor wrote. For example, a February report documented the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, but did not specify how many of them were killed while attempting to attack Israeli civilians, soldiers, or police officers, as has happened repeatedly since the current wave of violence began in September. Much of OCHA-oPt’s reports contain data and information from pro-Palestinian NGOs, the PLO, and even Hamas, and yet almost never cite statistics from Israeli sources like the Israel Defense Forces or the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the NGO Monitor report alleged.

OCHA also organizes “Thematic Clusters,” which convene UN agencies, government donors, and NGOs to collaborate on activities. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, OCHA’s “Protection Cluster” designated groups like B’Tselem and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights to provide casualty statistics that were subsequently cited in UN reports, the media, and by government officials. These groups appeared to have been repeating information originating with Hamas officials in Gaza, NGO Monitor wrote.

OCHA’s politicization extends beyond Israel. Its 2016 humanitarian response plan for Syria was changed after OCHA “altered dozens of passages and omitted pertinent information to paint the government of Bashar al-Assad in a more favorable light,” Foreign Policyreported.

OCHA-oPt’s budget, which in 2013 was nearly five million dollars, is largely provided by the European Union and constituent states like Belgium, Spain, Norway, and Sweden.

NGO Monitor’s full report can be seen here.

http://www.thetower.org/3195-report-...israel-groups/