Boomerang: Economic pressure hits BDS campaigners

• By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL against BDS organizations has revealed issue of BDS and finance] to that hardcore antisemitism and terrorism the state level.” Israeli Strategic Affairs or the first time since its formal are integral elements of scores of BDS Minister , for example, has establishment in 2005, the anti- entities and individuals. addressed foreign states’ interior ministers Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Without naming countries, Gavrieli cited and security service leaders. movement has encountered a set the disturbing immorality involved when “We are still in the process of communicating Fof countervailing forces that is depriving “states friendly to Israel are aiding groups this message,” said the high-energy Gavrieli, it of funding platforms, and branding it that are involved in BDS.” “We see positive results,” he added, with as an enabler of terrorism. A checkered scores of banks, online payment service and sporadic attempt to blunt the BDS accounts and other financial platforms movement existed prior to 2016, but having closed accounts of BDS groups that fragmented approach has now been due to concern over terrorism funding. replaced with a high-intensity, systematic One holdout is the German Bank for Social counter-movement. Economy, which maintains an account In interviews with top representatives In the values of for a hardcore BDS group. Erdan urged of Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs; 2019, you can’t the bank to close the account. The Simon the prominent Israeli lawyer Nitsana Wiesenthal Center included the Bank for Darshan-Leitner, founder of the Shurat present yourself as Social Economy in its 2018 top-10 list of HaDin Israel Law Center; and Gerald a terrorist. You need the worst occurrences of antisemitism. Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, a Gavrieli stressed that the ministry “doesn’t picture emerges of the dramatic setbacks have a human rights take all of the credit,” because there are a met by BDS organizations over the last number of “pro-Israel organizations waging three years. façade for a Western war against delegitimization [of Israel] The Ministry of Strategic Affairs, along audience and BDS.” He said that there has been a with a growing pro-Israel community around salient shift by states and NGOs, which the world has breathed new life and fire Tzahi Gavrieli into both defunding and reducing financial contributions to BDS organizations. “These [BDS] organizations are obsessed with eradicating Israel as a Jewish state,” One of the most telling examples of a said Tzahi Gavrieli, director of the National humanitarian organization pumping funds Campaign for countering Delegitimization into terrorism involved World Vision. In and acting director general for the Ministry August 2016, Israeli authorities revealed of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy. that Mohammed El-Halabi, director of Gavrieli explained that as the ministry the international NGO’s Gaza branch, investigated the entities, it found “links siphoned $7.2 million a year to the between designated terrorist organizations terrorist movement. According to the Israeli and these [BDS] organizations,” which government, “more than half of World resorted to deception in an effort to conceal Vision’s resources in the − the connections. “In the values of 2019, originating in aid money from Western you can’t present yourself as a terrorist,” states such as the , England said Gavrieli. “You need to have a human and Australia − were transferred to Hamas rights facade for a Western audience.” to strengthen its terrorist arm.” The ministry addressed this tactic in its After the World Vision terrorism 2019 monograph, “Terrorists in Suits: The connection was revealed, Australia and Ties between NGOs Promoting BDS and Germany swiftly suspended their funding Terrorist Organizations.” The results of to the NGO.  Tzahi Gavrieli, Acting Director General, the one-two punch by the ministry – and Gavrieli explained because of the nature Ministry of Strategic Affairs the international pro-Israel community – of state funding, “We have taken it [the (Courtesy)

June 2019 ‹› 18  ‘Terrorist organizations have one foot in the terror world and one foot in the legitimate world. They cannot act without bank accounts,’ says Nitsana Darshan-Leitner (Courtesy)

previously ignored funding streams and was an important step and a clear message bad actors, to tracking money trails due that the real face of the BDS activists is to terror finance. revealed. Har-Zvi cited an article on a pro- The Strategic Affairs Ministry published BDS website in the US a few months ago another monograph in January, “The Money and said “they [BDS organizations] feel We see positive Trail: European Financing of Organizations they are under pressure and lack money” Promoting Boycotts Against the State due to the counter-attacks. results with banks of Israel.” Along with the sea-change Har-Zvi, who wrote a dissertation on and other financial in methodology targeting NGOs and Jordan’s policy toward , said BDS entities tainted with terrorism and the three stages of financed BDS are: platforms that have antisemitism, the monograph has triggered state-sponsored BDS; philanthropy; and closed accounts of a long-overdue public conversation about financial platforms and crowdsourcing the nature of funding streams. The questions that are the lifeblood of BDS activity. “We BDS groups due now being asked, according to Strategic have begun to see that European countries Affairs officials, consist of: “Are these have already started to reconsider their to concerns over organizations connected to terrorism? Are grants given to BDS organizations” with terrorism funding these organizations antisemitic?” respect to unsavory NGOs, said Har-Zvi. Dr. Shay Har-Zvi, executive director Governments and NGOs “should know of research in the ministry, said that the if designated terrorist organizations are Tzahi Gavrieli German authorities’ decision two months using a facade” to stoke BDS, said Gavrieli, ago to deport the convicted terrorist and adding that there is a need for “better BDS activist Rasmea Odeh from Berlin due diligence.”

BDS ‹› 19 The unfolding anti-BDS movement led account: “This council [BNC] is composed Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) to the PGGM – the second-largest pension of a few organizations that the US govt definition of antisemitism as important. fund in The Netherlands – rescinding its does not allow us to do business with.” “When a significant NGO like CMI [Crisis blacklist of five Israeli banks in January. Management Initiative, a group based The Dutch pension group had blacklisted in Finland] says we abide by the IHRA the five banks in 2014. definition, it can be held to those terms. In December 2017, Denmark’s government CMI did it voluntarily and it is a good announced that it pulled the plug on funds to precedent for other NGOs.” Palestinian NGOs because of their links to The recently elected Finnish MP Hussein terrorism. “I am glad that Denmark understood Terrorist organizations al-Taee, a supporter of the Islamic Republic that the Danish taxpayer should not finance, have one foot in the of Iran who served as an adviser for CMI directly or indirectly, Palestinian organizations covering Iraq, was embroiled in an antisemitism, that have direct connections to terrorist terror world and one racism and homophobia scandal in May. groups,” Erdan said at the time. “I call on After revelations in the Israeli and Finnish other countries in Europe to exercise the same foot in the legitimate media about his antisemitic Facebook posts, moral responsibility and take similar steps.” CMI scrubbed him from its website, and Following Denmark, Norway’s government world. They cannot said he would likely not be reemployed. In announced in December 2017 that a “Boycott act without bank response to NGO Monitor criticism, CMI creates distance, while the Norwegian government accepted the IHRA definition of Jew-hatred believes in dialogue and cooperation to accounts that includes expressions of contemporary create mutual trust as part of the solution antisemitism, namely discriminatory attacks Nitsana Darshan-Leitner to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” on the Jewish state. The Danish government funded the Taken together, the Ministry of Strategic terrorist-linked NGOs via the Human Affairs and the pro-Israel community in Rights and International Humanitarian Law In other words, the BNC is tainted by the Diaspora have reversed the BDS Secretariat in Ramallah. The now defunct terrorism. “Now the name BNC is toxic,” momentum from 2005. While still in controversial and non-transparent Human said Darshan-Leitner. its infancy, the counter-BDS movement Rights and International Humanitarian Law She explained how “terrorist organizations has demonstrated tangible results in the Secretariat was the main clearinghouse have one foot in the terror world and one ongoing economic war. In short, the BDS for EU funds to be funneled to NGOs. foot in the legitimate world. They cannot campaign is running scared. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, head of Shurat HaDin, act without bank accounts. We have the Benjamin Weinthal is fellow for the Foundation works to expose the lack of due diligence, with opportunity to go after them.” Omar Barghouti, for Defense of Democracies.  a view toward winning high compensation for an Israeli resident and co-founder of the victims of terrorism and stopping the finance BDS campaign, runs the BNC. of proscribed terrorist entities. BDS assaults on the legitimacy of Israel’s Shurat HaDin has a track record of success existence − or what has become known in against targets involved in illicit terror anti-BDS circles as “delegitimization” − finance. In one case in 2017, the organization is the chief concern for Darshan-Leitner, won a $178.5 million judgment in US court Gavrieli and Har-Zvi. against Iran and for their material Darshan-Leitner said the delegitimization support of Hamas. The court ordered the attacks are prevalent on college campuses, Sunni terrorist entity to pay damages to where students are learning to become the family of Chaya Zissel Braun, a baby future “leaders” in government. girl with US citizenship who was murdered “The students are being brainwashed,” near a station of the Jerusalem Light Rail she said. in 2014. Hamas publicly called the terrorist Steinberg’s NGO Monitor zooms in on a “martyr” and a “son” of Hamas. ground-zero of the anti-Israel NGO world: The Ramallah-based BDS National Committee European NGOs and their funding streams. (BNC) experienced the effectiveness of Steinberg does, however, see progress in Shurat HaDin when the US-based online confronting the anti-Israel NGO sector. fund-raising platform DonorBox rapidly “For the last five or six years, the Israeli suspended and then closed its account due government has taken [these] NGOs seriously. to suspected terrorism links. In December It is raised at bilateral [government] meetings 2018, Darshan-Leitner’s organization sent [with other countries]. That is a change. an “emergency letter” to DonorBox, and We see our work being highlighted.”  Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the the account was suspended within a week. Steinberg sees the adoption by many founder of the Shurat HaDin Israeli Law DonorBox tweeted after it closed the BNC’s European countries of the International Center (Courtesy)

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