The “Palestinian professional and popular unions” last week announced their decision to “consider the Zionist organizations (NGO Monitor and Regavim) as terrorist organizations operating outside the scope of international law,” and “called on all relevant international institutions and bodies to sever relations and never deal with them, as they are among the many Israeli institutions that operate according to the directives of the occupation security services, and with direct instructions from the fascist occupation government.”
Yes, the folks at the PLO organizations have had enough with these two pesky organizations: NGO Monitor, whose website is dedicated to meticulous listings of the myriad so-called Palestinian NGOs whose public faces speak of protecting human rights but in reality, are fronts for murderous terror groups funded by international anti-Israel organizations and governments; and Regavim, the first truly effective, right-wing group that uses the Israeli courts to constantly expose the anti-Zionist attitudes of the country’s civil service, investigate illegal activities of the Palestinian Authority and its henchmen in Judea and Samaria, and sue to evict illegal Arab and Bedouin squatters.
Terrorist organizations indeed. The PLO unions’ announcement (النقابات المهنية والاتحادات الشعبية في منظمة التحرير تضع مقدراتها في خدمة المؤسسات الأهلية ال) continues:
The unions stressed that “NGO Monitor is a specialized and skilled institution in falsifying facts that seeks in all its reports to stigmatize the Palestinian national struggle and the development and human rights work of NGOs with the stain of terrorism, while the Regavim Foundation, which specializes in supporting settlement activity, works to monitor and prosecute any Palestinian activity in the areas classified as Area C, and incites to prevent it for racist settlement goals, adding that the occupation government and its security services rely on the false reports of these two institutions in their decisions against popular and civil Palestinian action.”
The PLO affiliates also stressed that “the occupation’s decision to ban the work of six Palestinian NGOs, and before that, the closure of the Health Work Committees and the arrest of some of its employees, is a racist decision that has no value and legitimacy, as are all occupational decisions hostile to our Palestinian people, its institutions and national rights, and constitutes a serious violation of Palestinian sovereignty and laws, which constitute the only reference for the work of these national institutions’ development that provides basic services to a wide segment of the Palestinian people, including its role in pursuing the leaders of the occupation in international courts and forums.”
It’s might be my Google Translate, but the essence of the above dense paragraph is that it was those two groups’ sound research that exposed six Arab NGOs as the terror-supporters that they are, PFLP affiliates in this case – and the exposure was so clear and sound that Defense Minister Benny Gantz used it to designate them as terror groups.
Gerald M. Steinberg, a professor of politics at Bar Ilan University and the founder of NGO-Monitor, released a statement saying: “For over 20 years, the massive NGO industry, financed by European governments, through the facades of human rights and development, has been a primary instrument of Palestinian demonization against Israel. As NGO Monitor’s independent and detailed research has demonstrated, the network of NGOs leading this deadly propaganda war is run by officials of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. Now that these NGOs have belatedly been designated as terror fronts by the Israeli government, the Palestinians and their allies are lashing out furiously at everyone involved, and in all directions.”
I would say “lashing out” describes perfectly the tantrum that was thrown in the PLO unions’ attack.
The Regavim movement sent The Jewish Press a statement saying: “For the past 16 years, Regavim has dedicated itself to the protection of Israel’s most basic and most scarce resources – first and foremost among them the land itself. We monitor, document, research, and report on illegal use of these resources, and work to promote policy and legislation that expresses the Zionist vision for a safe and prosperous Jewish homeland. In this context, we have exposed the terrorist affiliations of numerous foreign-funded Palestinian ‘civil society’ organizations that have co-opted the language of humanitarian rights to disguise their goal of eradicating the Jewish State and its citizens. We are proud of the Israeli government’s long-overdue announcement that our findings will be implemented, and will continue our fight to protect Israel’s resources and preserve Israeli sovereignty.”
I would buy these guys a beer. Lechayim for finally receiving the recognition you deserve – from the enemy.