Jerusalem, 27 May 2020

Mr. Olivér Várhelyi

EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement

RE: EU SUPPORT FOR CRITICAL CIVIL SOCIETY IN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

Dear Commissioner Várhelyi,

The Policy Working Group (PWG) is a collective of senior Israeli academics, former ambassadors and
human rights defenders who advocate and promote a transformation of relations between Israel and
Palestine from occupation to coexistence based on a two-state solution.

With interest, we have noted your statements concerning claims that EU financial support is going to
terrorists or terrorist organizations. During a press conference on 19 May 2020, you reported “we have
received a number of requests from the Israeli authorities in that regard and also in the public in Israel.”
Responding to these “requests,” you have instructed the EU Heads of Mission in Tel Aviv and in the West
Bank and Gaza to look into the matter, stressing “they will have to look deep.”

We wish to add context to what is happening here.

For many years, the Israeli Government has been waging a malicious and aggressive campaign against
civil society organizations that monitor and criticize its policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Whereas the work
of human rights NGOs in Israel has been obstructed by illiberal legislation and their staff are often branded
as “traitors,” Palestinian NGOs are frequently framed as supporters of terrorism.

The Israeli organization spearheading the campaign against critical Israeli and Palestinian civil society
organizations is NGO Monitor. You received a copy of a letter dated 30 April 2020 which NGO Monitor sent
to EC President von der Leyen to protest and discredit a “clarification letter” to Palestinian NGOs by Sven
Kühn von Burgsdorff, Head of the EU Representative Office to the West Bank and Gaza.

In September 2018, the Policy Working Group (PWG) published a report about this organization, titled
“NGO Monitor: Shrinking space.” The subtitle summarizes what NGO Monitor does: “Defaming human
rights organizations that criticize the Israeli occupation.”

In my foreword to the report, I quote Prof. Amal Jamal, the Israeli scholar who authored an illuminating
publication in early 2018 under the umbrella of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), titled “The Rise
of ‘Bad Civil Society’ in Israel.” Indeed, our civil society is under duress, prey to predator-style organizations
whose sole purpose is to discredit and disrupt NGOs that monitor violations of human rights and
international law in the context of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. NGO Monitor is a leading exponent of
this troubling phenomenon.

Allow us to remind you that NGO Monitor’s work was dismissed by former EU Ambassador to Israel Lars
Faaborg-Andersen as “a cocktail of tendentious research, intentional inaccuracies and downright EU-
bashing propaganda.” In a recent letter to EC President von der Leyen, the Palestinian NGO network
PNGO recalled that “NGO Monitor’s methods and campaigns have been denounced by several European
governments, including Belgium (’the allegations by NGO Monitor are unfounded and thus unacceptable’),
Denmark (‘detached claims that cannot be substantiated by documentation’), the Netherlands (’careful
substantiation is lacking’), and Norway (’the organization has a clear political slant’).”
Under the previous Israeli Government, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs adopted NGO Monitor’s tactics and
amplified its smear campaigns. Apart from defaming critical Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, it has also
targeted the European Union itself. In two consecutive reports “The Money Trail” (here and here), it
disrespectfully accused the EU of financing incitement and terrorism. In response, former EU High
Representative Mogherini wrote a harsh letter to former Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan,
denouncing such accusations as “unfounded and unacceptable,” adding that “vague and unsubstantiated
accusations serve only to contribute to disinformation campaigns.”

Israeli propaganda and campaigns to cut the EU’s vital funding for Israeli and Palestinian civil society
organizations are thus nothing new. What would be new, however, is the EU taking such propaganda and
campaigns seriously and acting upon them.

You will have seen that NGO Monitor warmly welcomed the resolve with which you responded to its
“exposé on how EU money could flow to terror-linked Palestinian NGOs.” NGO Monitor is now doing its best
to fan the flames by calling on the Commission “to check each Palestinian NGO it has funded in the last
three years,” while demanding a refund “if terror links are proven.”

For NGO Monitor it is a done deal that the Palestinian NGOs and individuals it has been targeting for years
are guilty of such links. It is now hoping to drag the European Commission towards that same conclusion.
For the EU, however, this cannot be the way forward. As the Dutch Government observed last January,
“many of NGO Monitor's accusations are based on selective citations, half-facts and insinuations.”

The EU is a community intrinsically committed to and bound by legal principles and judicial standards,
which are alien to NGO Monitor and the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs. In the current context, we urge
you to loudly reaffirm and promote these principles and standards.

With “current context,” we are also referring to the approaching catastrophe of annexation. All of the above
cannot be seen detached from the plans and preparations of the Israeli Government to annex large and
vital parts of the West Bank.

The Israeli and Palestinian civil society organizations that have been ruthlessly targeted by NGO Monitor
and the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs criticize and challenge these plans and preparations, which carry
the promise of more and graver violations of human rights and international law and of destroying the two-
state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The EU’s financial support and political backing for these
principled organizations is now more important than ever.

Conversely, NGO Monitor and the Ministry of Strategic Affairs are internationally shielding and thus
facilitating annexation. We urge you to refrain from any statements and actions that could aid their
escalating campaign to cut funding and shrink civic space for critical NGOs – a campaign that is also
designed to distract your attention from annexation.

Against this background, we strongly encourage you to direct your attention and resolve to opposing and
dissuading what poses an imminent threat to the EU’s vital interests and the rules-based international order
at large: Israel’s annexation of large parts of the West Bank.

The PWG wishes to assure you of its respect and highest consideration.

Sincerely yours,

Ambassador (ret.) Ilan Baruch

Chair

Policy Working Group, Israel

Cc. Ms. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
Mr. Josep Borrell, Vice-President/High Representative
Ambassador Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, EU Representative to Palestine
Ambassador Emanuele Giaufret, EU Representative to Israel
Ambassador Susanna Terstal, EU Special Envoy to the MEPP
Mr. Christian Danielsson, Director-General for Enlargement
Mr. Gilles de Kerchove, Counter-Terrorism Coordinator