Israel and the US State Department clashed over the weekend after the Justice and Defense ministries on Friday declared that several leading Palestinian NGOs were arms of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.The ministries each issued documents classifying Addameer, Al Haq, Bisan Center, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Union Of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), as branches of the PFLP, joining other NGOs who had previously also been designated as terrorist affiliates.The US State Department criticized the announcement on Friday in the most explicit admonition from the Biden administration since the new Israeli government was formed in June.
The State of Israel itself has issued a detailed report, titled "Terrorists in Suits," documenting the extensive links between the PFLP and three of the organizations listed - Al Haq, Defense for Children International-Palestine, and Addameer. Some excerpts:
There is no coincidence here. The PFLP is a Marxist organization that uses human rights as a weapon against Israel at the exact same time they are using explosives to kill Jews. Because it is socialist, the far Left haters of Israel fully embrace the PFLP, treating its terrorists as heroes - and these are many of the same organizations now screaming the loudest that their terrorist-linked NGOs are being treated appropriately.
What about the other organizations listed? What are their PFLP links?
One of the people arrested for the murder of Rina Shnerb was Samer Arbid, who served as an accountant at the Union of Agricultural Works Committees (UAWC) and led the cell for the murder - which the PFLP proudly calls the Bubeen operation.
The Regavim organization documented the links between the PFLP and UAWC:
Both the PFLP and UAWC have attempted to obscure their close ties, in order to portray the civilian organization as an independent non-profit. Notwithstanding their efforts, there is clear evidence of their ideological and financial interdependence: An internal document prepared for the American humanitarian organization USAID in 1993 stated that the UAWC is "the agricultural wing of the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine." In fact, the PLO registered the UAWC as a branch of the Popular Front.The affiliation of the UAWC with the PFLP is ongoing, despite the latter's classification both by the United States and the European Union. Senior figures in the PFLP hierarchy have served in senior positions in the UAWC, among them Jamil Muhamad Ismail Al Majdalawi, formerly the Vice President of the UAWC in Gaza, who is a well known senior officer in the PFLP. He served as head of the political division of the PFLP in Gaza, and in 2013 acted as the PFLP's representative to Fatah bodies in the Palestinian Authority. Bashar Al Khiri served as Chief of the PFLP's Political Division in the early 2000s. He was arrested and imprisoned by the State of Israel, and after his release served as President of the UAWC Advisory Board from 2005-2010.
Ubai Aboudi is the Executive Director of Bisan Center for Research & Development. In early 2005 he was arrested for planning an attack at the Latrun Armory Museum and also to carry out a shooting attack against an IDF vehicle and abduct the soldiers' bodies.
A report for USAID mentions that the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees was founded as the the PFLP's women's organization, just as the UAWC was founded as its agricultural wing. The report, written in 1993, says "Most major Palestinian institutions, especially in the health, agricultural,
and industrial sectors, are affiliated with one of the principal factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah, PFLP, PPP, and the two wings of the
DFLP). That is, each faction has its own medical committee, agricultural
committee, women's committee, federation of trade unions, etc."
The very genesis of Palestinian NGOs that are now considered to be "human rights" organizations are as part of designated terror groups - and the US knows this quite well!
The PFLP is not just "linked" to these NGOs. For most of them, it appears to be their founders. Any pretense that they have separated their ways is ignoring reality, as people move back and forth between the PFLP and these organizations even today.
It is too bad the State of Israel didn't release the corroborating information on these NGO links to terrorist organizations in concert with the announcement. As usual, the messaging has been amateurish or incompetent. But the links and history is all there for anyone who bothers to look.
