EU agenda: Diminishing support for Palestinians one clause at a time
Israeli forces stand by as Palestinian homes are demolished south of Yatta village, 3 June 2020
Amaya Al-Orzza writes in Mondoweiss:
After a lengthy correspondence on June 12 the European Union informed the Palestinian human rights organization BADIL that it was canceling their 1.7 million euro joint project, “Mobilizing for Justice in Jerusalem.” The reason the three-year program was canceled? BADIL refused to sign the so-called “anti-terrorism” clause added in the EU’s project conditions.
BADIL is not alone in rejecting those conditions. Last December, following the decision by the EU to incorporate this clause to all its grants, 230 Palestinian groups founded a national campaign to reject all politically conditioned funding. These include arts organizations like the Palestine Circus School, the Freedom Theater, and media groups like the Alternative Information Center. As a legal researcher at BADIL for six years, I have been following the issue closely.
Palestinian nonprofits have overwhelmingly rejected the clause because it allows for the labeling of local political parties and resistance movements as terrorist organizations. As well, it imposes the EU’s definition of what constitutes terrorism on Palestinians, who must accept it – in effect, agreeing that their neighbors, friends, or relatives are “terrorists” – if they wish to receive European funding. What’s more, there is a participatory element where organizations would be asked to screen all persons and groups involved in funded projects, whether they are staff, participants to workshops, or beneficiaries of assistance. This would create a process of using civil society groups to decide who is a “good” or “bad” Palestinian based on European and Israeli criteria. This completely ignores the political context in which Palestinian civil society organizations operate. Categorized as a people “under colonial and foreign domination” by the United Nations, Palestinians have a recognized right to resist the Israeli occupation by all means necessary, including armed struggle. The unchecked criminalization of Palestinian resistance, presented as an essential condition for receiving European funding, ignores the root cause of these resistance movements: the ongoing dispossession of their land.