Following similar moves by Denmark and Holland, this week Swizerland’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that their Government’s funding to Palestininian NGO Human Rights International Humanitarian Law Secretariat will stop, due to reports of the organisation’s failure to cut their ties with terrorism.
In a space of two years (2014-2016), the Secretariat spent more than $14 million to NGOs, of which $7.3 million was disbursed to groups involved in BDS campaigns against Israel, according to NGO Monitor, an organisation that reviews funding to NGOs seemingly hostile to Israel.
Other organisations funded by Swizerland call for the annihilation of Israel and death to the Jews, according to a report by Swiss paper Basler Zeitung.
Didier Burkhalter, Member of Parliament for the Swiss Federal Council, acknowledged recently that the existing terms of funding for Palestinian NGOs needed reviewing, noting that “Switzerland does not in any way support organizations that incite hatred or anti-Semitism, or organisations associated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel”.
Critics of the The Human Rights International Humanitarian Law Secretariat say it glorifies Palestinian terrorism, for instance by its reported distribution of funds to the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), who named a youth centre after a Palestinian terrorist.
According to reports, a number of the recipients from the WATC are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organisation.
In the past year, Reuters claim that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates in particular, have cut back their contributions to the PA. Saudi Arabia, who in the past contributed £16 million each month to the PA, reportedly stopped making its payments last April in order to apply pressure on PA President Mahmoud Abbas to implement political changes. The European Union and U.S. have also recently reduced their direct budgetary support to the PA, opting instead to fund specific development projects.
