Israel Hayom..
14 December '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/12/14/funneling-hatred/
Between one round of violence in the south and the next, the "marches of return" and arson balloons and kites floated over the border from Gaza are still with us. With or without a cease-fire agreement, Hamas is not giving up on this particular weapon: over the past two years, they have started 2,155 fires that consumed some 35,000 dunams (over 8,600 acres) of forests, fields, and nature preserves. The total damage is estimated at some $50 million.
Recently, the 84th weekly protests on the Gaza border were held, but Hamas kept them in check. The organization is trying to play down the violent activity that characterizes the "marches" – rock throwing, improvised explosive devices and Molotov cocktails, and intermittent shooting and attempts to breach the border fence.
Of course, none of this happened in a vacuum. The Jewish National Fund and families of victims of terrorism have filed a civil suit in US federal court that is seeking to expose how money to fund these activities makes its way to the Gaza Strip. In particular, the suit aims to throw light on the groups that help move funds there, directly or indirectly. If the details of the suit are found to have legal basis, it will be possible to point to three links in the money chain, the first of which is the PNIF – the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces. The group was established by former PLO leader Yasser Arafat during the Second Intifada, in which some 1,000 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks.
Arafat founded the PNIF as an entity that would coordinate between the various organizations fighting against Israel, with the goal of promoting that warfare. It turns out that the PNIF was never dismantled and in fact helped establish the Supreme National Authority of the Return Marches and Lifting the Siege.
A total of 12 religious and nationalist Palestinian factions belong to the PNIF, including Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Liberation Front, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the PFLP general headquarters. All of them are recognized as terrorist groups by Israel, the US, and Europe.
The second link is the BDS National Committee, a leading player in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that was founded in Ramallah. BNC sees itself as an umbrella organization that heads the international movement to boycott Israel, and according to a recent report by Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry titled "Terrorists in Suits" it "rejects the existence of the state of Israel; works to label it an apartheid state; and even aspires to attack it through diplomatic, economic, security, and cultural means."
The third link is the specific group named in the lawsuit: the American charity group Education for Just Peace in the Middle East dba US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). According to the lawsuit, at least as far back as 2017 the group has functioned as a pipeline to transfer donations to terrorist organizations, utilizing the BNC. The money USCPR transfers to the BNC are designated charitable donations, and are therefore tax-exempt. The lawsuit argues that starting in 2018, the USCPR has been involved in a conspiracy to support, promote, and encourage the marches of return, which are directed, led, and encouraged by a terrorist coalition. Therefore, the suit argues, the BNC receives tax-free donations and uses them to promote an agenda of hatred and the arson balloon and kite attacks against Israel.
Boycott as a strategy
Did the BNC know about the terrorist activity that was part of the marches of return? Attorney Yifa Segal, director of the International Legal Forum, which helped the plaintiffs in the suit, says it did.
Segal, founder of the forum -which operates in over 30 countries and acts as a civil and legal branch of the war on terrorism, anti-Semitism, and campaign to delegitimize Israel, says that the BNC is "an integral part of the marches of return," and doesn't even bother to hide it.
The lawsuit by the JNF and a number of families from the western Negev that have been victimized by terrorism was filed through the law firm Heideman Nudelman & Kalik in Washington. It is based on an independent study by the form as well as Israeli reports, one of which points to close links between the BNC and terrorist groups.
"The Palestinian National and Islamist Forces were calling for boycotts of Israeli goods years ago, and the calls for BDS [against Israel] continue on a weekly basis," the report stated. At the end of 2018, the Nationalist and Islamist Forces held a demonstration in honor of the "martyrs of Palestine": Ashraf Naalwa, who murdered Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and Ziv Hajbi in a terrorist shooting at the Barkan industrial park in October 2018, and Salah Barghouti, who a few months later murdered a baby in his mother's womb and seriously wounded his parents near Ofra. The coordinator and spokesman for the BNC, Mahmoud Nawajaa, even posted content praising Naalwa.
The PNIF is still active, with a logo and social media accounts. In Gaza, the local branch of the PNIF is led by Khaled al-Batsh, a senior member of the PIJ. Ismail Radwan, a former minister in the Hamas government, is also a member. In November 2018, Radwan took a public stance against those who "normalize relations with the occupation" and made it clear that "they will burn in Hell with the monkey and the pigs…."
According to the lawsuit, since the BNC was founded in April 2008, the PNIF has been a leading member. Segal thinks that "without the approval and guidance of the PNIF, the boycott campaign could not exist or be so successful, and the BNC wouldn't have been founded at all. The PNIF itself has repeated stated that the boycott campaign is part of its national strategy against Israel, and that there is a large overlap in the BNC's and PNIF's funding of it. The organizations are entwined and motivated by the goal of terrorizing and demonizing Israel."
The government's "Terrorists in Suits" report also dwells on this particular duo, as well as the connection between the PNIF, which belongs to the BNC, and the PFLP. But the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is only part of the picture. Hamas also has ties to the PNIF, such as its representatives on the Prisoners Affairs Committee, Abu Khamis Dabash and Iyad Abu Fanun, who frequently preaches terrorism on Hamas' Al-Aqsa channel, and the Hamas spokesman in Tulkarem, Abdullah Yassin Fukha. Key members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are also members of the BNC, including Tareq Qaadan, who has been arrested many times and served 12 years in Israeli prison for terrorist activity.
'Fostering terrorism'
Some members of the BNC have taken part in the weekly marches, even its coordinator in Gaza, Rahman Abu Nahl. On the one-year anniversary of the marches, the BNC itself put up a supportive post on its Facebook page, and several members helped organized an "Apartheid Week" that included arson balloons and kites.
The lawsuit claims that since the establishment of the BNC, the USCPR has been its partner and at least since November 2017 has been knowingly supplying it with funds and services that went to terrorism that has killed or wounded Israeli civilians and damaged property, or attempted to.
In accordance with American law, the USCPR is being sued for aiding terrorist organizations that committed international acts of terrorism that resulted in widespread destruction and caused emotional and psychological distress to the residents of southern Israel, including young children who live under the threat of rocket fire.
The JNF and the other plaintiffs are suing the USCPR for $90 million, based on the damages allegedly caused by the arson balloons and kites.
JNF chairman Daniel Atar feels that the lawsuit "With this lawsuit, we’re exposing the link between organizations masquerading as human-rights organizations, but who use donations to advance the campaign of terror against Israel including through BDS, perpetrated by terror organizations like Hamas and supported by US charities."
Segal says that the precedent-setting lawsuit "exposes a shocking and multi-layered planned conspiracy and campaign aimed at manipulating the public and hiding the key role played by designated Foreign Terror Organizations in efforts which are cynically designed to appear seemingly grassroots and legitimate, while masking an international terror campaign."
“The public, as well as decision-makers worldwide, have the right to the truth and must be made aware of the true identity and agenda of those behind these efforts."
Segal says that her group's research could lead to "many developments," and cites the lawsuit as merely an "opening shot."
"We need to designate the organizations involved as terrorist groups and launch official criminal investigations against them. Aside from the headlines and the declarations, we have put together a huge puzzle with a lot of parts. We've exposed the hidden levels. The BNC is careful and avoids explicit support of terrorism, but putting together all the pieces of the puzzle made its true intentions clear and draws back the curtain that was concealing the real players … The goal is to change the equation."
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