by Lahav Harkov
The Humanitarian Response Plan for 2022 includes a partnership with a Palestinian NGO designated as a terror organization because of their work as a money-laundering front.
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Israel's Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan is seen speaking at an event with 25 African UN ambassadors, on November 8, 2021.
(photo credit: Courtesy)
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The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) is partnering with organizations that have ties to the terrorist
group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan warned in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
OCHA’s
Humanitarian Response Plan for 2022 includes a partnership with the
Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), one of six Palestinian
NGOs Israel designated as terror organizations, because of their work as
a money-laundering front for the PFLP.
“It
is outrageous that an organization with a mission to ensure
international peace and security would partner with organizations that
directly and materially support terrorists and provide the PFLP – a
designated terrorist organization worldwide, including in Israel, the
US, the EU, Australia, Canada and Japan – with its financial lifeline,”
Erdan wrote.
The
partnerships “fly in the face of the relevant UN counterterrorism
resolutions,” the ambassador added, quoting UN Security Council
Resolution 2462 of 2019, which warned against the “abuse of nonprofit
organizations [and] donations” by terrorists and calls on member states
to prevent the financing of terrorism, as well as the 2021 UN Global
Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which did the same.
Erdan called on Guterres to ensure that OCHA does not work with NGOs that are part of the PFLP’s financial network.
Palestinian militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) take part in a military show to celebrate the 47th
anniversary of the group's founding, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza
Strip December 11, 2014. (credit: REUTERS/IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA)“While,
as you know, Israel strongly supports humanitarian efforts and is a
leader in this field, we must not allow well-intentioned humanitarian
work to be tainted and poisoned by the very terrorist groups that
destabilize our region and make such humanitarian efforts necessary in
the first place,” Erdan wrote.
The ties between UAWC
and the PFLP have been documented for years by Israeli groups like NGO
Monitor and the now-defunct Strategic Affairs Ministry, and after the
Defense Ministry and Justice Ministry banned it and five other NGOs,
provided videos of the organizations’ leaders participating in PFLP
events, among other evidence.
However,
the terrorist designation was criticized by some Western states,
including the US State Department, which claimed at the time that not
enough evidence was provided to back it up.
Also Monday, Erdan continued a tour of Israel with UN ambassadors
from 12 countries – South Korea, Argentina, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Uruguay, Ecuador, Hungary, Nauru, Palau, Samoa and Zambia.
The ambassadors met with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog.
Bennett
thanked them and called for them to express their countries’ friendship
with Israel through their actions at the UN. He discussed Israel’s
regional challenges, including the Iranian threat.
The group visited Israel’s northern border last week, and saw a tunnel Hezbollah dug into Israel.
Lahav Harkov
Source: https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-689258
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