NGO Monitor accuses British authorities of covering up funding for groups connected to terrorism against Israel

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The British Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has reportedly tried to cover up funding of £22 million ($27.8 million) for groups affiliated with anti-Israel terrorism, according to the research institute NGO Monitor.

Established in 2002 and based in Jerusalem, NGO Monitor specializes in monitoring funding of non-governmental organizations within the context of the Arab Israeli conflict. The controversy concerns £22 million in funds that were transferred to undisclosed recipients as part of a Palestinian Arab aid program in 2019-2020 under the leadership of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). In 2021, NGO Monitor officially requested the names of the specific funding recipients, but FCDO denied the request.

After three years of legal struggle, the Information Commission (IC) granted a hearing to NGO Monitor. However, the IC eventually sided with FCDO and ruled that disclosing the sensitive information could potentially undermine Great Britain’s international diplomatic ties.

FCDO reportedly argued that disclosing “the names of NGO grantees would cause friction in its relationship with Israel.”

NGO Monitor believes that the NRC has terror links through its cooperation with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a controversial organization that U.S. authorities have defined as the “agricultural arm” of the designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 2019, members of the PFLP murdered the Israeli teenager Rina Shnerb and wounded her father and brother in a terror attack in Samaria north of Jerusalem.

Anne Herzberg, legal advisor for NGO Monitor has been dealing with the Norwegian Refugee Council funding case and condemned British authorities for failing to vet subcontractor NGO grantees.

“The government witness testified they do not do vetting of subcontractor NGO grantees. This failure leaves UK aid susceptible to diversion, or to go to actors who are not appropriate aid partners.” Herzberg said. “The lack of transparency is very damaging as this prevents the public knowing what is being done with their taxpayer money.”

In addition to terrorism-linked funding, NGO Monitor has also accused NRC of conducting hostile lawfare tactics against Israel.

Herzberg rejected FCDO’s argument against publishing the names of the fund recipients.

“We are aware the Palestinian Authority (PA) has actively participated in the NRC project, funded by the FCDO. No doubt it would be quite embarrassing to the FCDO and the PA, were the details to become public. But embarrassment is not an excuse. If they have to hide what they are doing from Israel and the British public, there is clearly something highly problematic,” NGO Monitor’s legal advisor stated.

Jonathan Turner, director of the UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), echoed similar sentiments in its critique of FCDO’s aid projects in Gaza, as well as in Judea and Samaria, internationally known as the West Bank.

“Until 2015, the main British grant to the PA was paid into their main accounts, from which money was transferred to pay salaries to terrorists and their families – therefore this money came out of the same pot which the FCDO main grant was paid,” Turner said.

Anti-Israel terrorist organizations have a history of using NGOs as fronts for raising funds for terrorist activities.

In October 2021, Israeli authorities declared six Palestinian NGOs as “terror” groups due to their involvement with the PFLP. Then-Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz argued that the ultimate goal of these terrorist activities was the destruction of the Jewish state.

“Those organizations were active under the cover of civil society organizations, but in practice belong and constitute an arm of the [PFLP] leadership, the main activity of which is the liberation of Palestine and destruction of Israel,” Gantz stated.