According to an Israeli think tank, the UK government has funded over the past three years a controversial NGO that regularly challenges Israeli policy to the tune of $12.5 million, reported the Jewish Chronicle.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) was behind the funding of hundreds of yearly cases on behalf of Palestinian Arabs attacking Israeli policy, according to an NGO Monitor report.
The group added that the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was guilty of a “deliberate lack of transparency” in funding the NRC.
“I am sure the British taxpayer would be interested in why their money is funding an organization which actively works against one of the UK’s major allies in the Middle East, and why there is a complete lack of transparency in a UK ministry,” an NGO Monitor spokesperson told the Chronicle.
A 2018 NGO Monitor report stated that many of the organizations that NRC partnered with promoted the BDS movement and that the NGO’s “politicized activities and partnerships violate the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence, and humanity.”
The NRC runs an International, Counselling and Legal Assistance programme that funds 600 to 800 cases per year put forward by Israeli and Palestinian organizations and private lawyers.
The NGO Monitor report found that the UK Department for International Development contributed nearly two million dollars from 2013 to 2016 for legal challenges to “demolitions or evictions.”
NGO Monitor has written in the past about other similar cases of EU NGOs abusing taxpayer money to fund lawfare projects that make use of the legal system to attack Israel.