European Union
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The European Union has for the first time cancelled a grant to a Palestinian Arab non-profit organization for refusing to sign a clause that no terrorist organization benefit from its funds.

The organization, the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, had secured a €1.7 million (about NIS 6.5 million) for a three-year project called “Mobilizing for Justice in Jerusalem," which sought to document alleged Israeli crimes and violations in Israel's capital.

On Friday, Badil received a letter from the EU stating that since it had refused to sign Article 1.5 of Annex II of the “General conditions applicable to European Union-financed grant contracts for external actions,” the EU would “consider your application no longer valid."

Article 1.5 states that NGOs which receive grants must "ensure that there is no detection of subcontractors, natural persons, including participants to workshops and/or trainings and recipients of financial support to third parties, in the lists of EU restrictive measures.”

Included in the lists of proscribed organizations are Palestinian Arab terrorists groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Badil claimed that it refused to sign the clause because it "criminalizes the Palestinian struggle against oppression and requires the recipient organization to perform ‘screening’ procedures which amounts to policing its own people.”

The EU's announcement is the result of a professional dialogue between the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry and the EU which drew attention to the connections between Palestinian Arab civil society organizations which receive EU funding and terrorist organizations.

Strategic Affairs Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen praised the EU's decision not to fund Badil.

"I congratulate the EU on its steadfast stance against the illegitimate pressure it has faced on this matter. The Strategic Affairs Ministry has acted recently to ensure that the EU does not surrender to the illegitimate demands of Palestinian sources, but rather insists that European citizens do not have to fund terrorism. This decision is another step in the right direction," Farkash-Hacohen said.