Commentary Magazine..
23 March '14..
The growing European hostility toward the Jewish state is well publicized, as is the corresponding European support for the Palestinians and their agenda. The Palestinian Authority’s largest funder is not the oil-rich and supposedly sympathetic Arab world. It is not even the United States. No, despite its own critical financial situation, the largest single funder of the dubious Fatah-run mini-state in the West Bank is the European Union. Given the way in which the PA is known to squander huge sums of money through corruption, that it is guilty of torturing and persecuting political opponents, openly incites genocidal levels of Jew-hatred among its population and generally obstructs the peace process at every turn, this level of European funding ought to raise some eyebrows.
Yet, in addition to this direct funding to the PA, European countries are also channeling large amounts of money to highly politicized activist groups, and in doing so financing the legitimacy war being waged against Israel. In a report released by NGO Monitor earlier this month, it has been exposed that the EU, along with several other European governments, is paying for the waging of what has come to be known as “lawfare” against Israel. More noteworthy still is the way this funding is also being used by one particularly hostile and activist NGO to even pursue Canada, a close of ally of Israel, at the UN. The large body of evidence here really does have to be seen to be believed. Yet there is no denying it: European countries are indeed financing “lawfare” against two nations that they purport to consider friends.
The Palestinian NGO in question is the cryptically named Norwegian Refugee Council, a title that offers few clues as to the group’s actual activities. Quite simply, the primary function of this organization appears to be to wage “lawfare” against Israel’s judicial system in an effort to sabotage its legal process and subvert the democratic structures for determining Israeli policy. NGO Monitor reports that NRC has financed at least 677 cases that received full legal representation in court and other administrative bodies in Israel. According to an eyewitness report, the strategy here is to “try every possible legal measure to disrupt the Israeli judicial system… as many cases as possible are registered and that as many cases as possible are appealed to increase the workload of the courts and the Supreme Court to such an extent that there will be a blockage.”
In addition, NGO Monitor details how NRC pursues “public interest cases” concerning some of the most sensitive aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in an effort to circumvent the democratic process for determining Israeli policy on these matters, instead seeking to alter policy by obtaining legal precedents at the court level. Some of the most outrageous cases taken up by the NRC involve attempts to abrogate Jewish property rights in Jerusalem by bringing private cases seeking to nullify Jewish claims to property owned prior to 1948 and the Jordanian expulsion of all Jews from north, east, and south Jerusalem.
Most remarkable of all has to be the NRC’s activities against Canada. In 2008 another Palestinian campaign group masquerading as an NGO called Al Haq brought a civil case to court in Quebec that accused three Canadian companies of having operated illegally by being involved in the construction of West Bank settlements on privately owned Palestinian land. This was despite the fact that six lawsuits on this matter had already been filed in Israel itself. Primarily it appears that bringing the case to Canada was part of an orchestrated publicity stunt.
Yet, in 2009 the court in Quebec found that the campaigners had produced “no evidence whatsoever” to support their claims about the ownership of the land, and as such their case was thrown out, with partial costs being awarded to the defendants. In 2010 the court of appeal upheld the lower court’s decision and in 2011 the Canadian Supreme Court endorsed both of these previous rulings. Having still not received their desired outcome, in 2013 the NRC took the astonishing action of pursuing Canada at the UN, using funds specifically provided by Britain to do so. Issuing a complaint against the Canadian judicial system to the UN Human Rights Committee, the group also claimed that, “Canada violated its extra-territorial obligation to ensure respect for Articles 2, 7, 12, 17 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” Given just how supportive Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has been of Israel, one cannot help but wonder if this might not be part of the reason that Canada is being targeted at the UN in this way.
The primary donors for the NRC are Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the EU. Given that both Sweden and the UK already pay into the EU budget, tax payers in these countries are funding this organization twice over. Between 2011 and 2013 alone, the NRC spent $20 million on its lawfare campaigns. With the considerable deficits that most EU countries are currently running up, how might European publics react to discovering that this is how their tax euros are being spent? The British public exists in a permanent state of embitterment regarding the poor state of the country’s National Health Service. Imagine the news going down that while hospital wards are being closed, the British government is directing huge sums of money to a rogue NGO that engages in such activity as pursuing Canada at the UN on entirely trumped-up charges?
If nothing else, as long as this funding continues to flow, the Europeans cannot expect to play any role as fair brokers in the peace process, and they must be allowed absolutely no say in that matter.
Link: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/03/23/europeans-fund-lawfare-against-allies-israel-and-canada/
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