European Union Tortures Greek Fellow Europeans - What Can Israel Expect from the EU?

In January 2012 the EuroZone, the countries sharing the single currency, the euro, demanded extreme austerity from Greece. One of the provisions of the set of demands on Greece was to reduce medical benefits for the Greek population [veda qui].

We can now see the effect of these draconian demands. The French daily Le Figaro reported one and a half years ago, July 2015, on the gloomy picture. That is when Greece accepted a further set of harsh austerity demands by the EuroGroup which runs the EuroZone. I have no doubt that the situation now is worse than in 2015. Le Figaro writes:

Elevators out of service, tired greenish linoleum, a corridor burdened with patients abandoned on rolling beds. Over-aged medical material and medications that are running out. Austerity. At the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens, "We know what it is." . . .   

We hear them speaking harshly to each other . . .  "Go in front of me? Do you take yourself for a German?" exclaims an irritated fifty-year old  waiting his turn at the window where medicines are given out. "We're all worn out," another patient makes an excuse. "We mustn't complain," sighs Denise, an epileptic, 40 years old who subsists with her daughter  thanks to a disability pension of 300 euros per month. "We still have free medications." . . . . "I try to survive as best I can," chief cardiologist Dr Ilias Zarkos confides.  "At the  age of fifty-five I earn 1320 euros per month, as against 1600 euros four years ago. . . . In the past five years, we have all had our salaries reduced, and 20% of the staff went on retirement without being replaced. . . . Who would want to work under these conditions? Greece is now naked." "Every year the subsidies and equipment provided to the hospital are reduced by 15%," Dr Sioras continues. [Le Figaro, 15 Juillet 2015]

That is the state of Greek hospitals as of July 2015. That is the result of years of EU austerity treatment for the original debt crisis, whereas Greek debt as of July 2015 and as of now too, is worse, is higher than in 2010 when the debt crisis first came to light. Sometimes the remedy is worse than the disease.

If the Greeks were perhaps an exotic tribe in Africa or on the island of Borneo or some decidedly Third World country, would the EU be so callous to their suffering? Would the hospitals have to make do with short supplies and out of date equipment and supplies and reduced staff? Wouldn't Europe's supposed charitable and humanitarian instincts take over and wouldn't the cries for help be answered? Where is the solidarity for fellow Europeans, whereas solidarity is supposed to be a fundamental principle of the EU? Indeed, solidarity may be located in the same place as another EU principle, transparency, another EU value which is honored as much in the breach as the observance.

Besides, when the Palestinian Authority, a new form of the old PLO, is short of funds, somehow the EU finds the money. But the same generosity does not show up for the Greeks, for their fellow Europeans who are suffering. Nor does the supposed EU principle of transparency come into effect when it comes to funding a whole array of anti-Israel NGOs .....

The EuroGroup policy toward their fellow European Greeks is harsh and callous, and unproductive. What is their attitude toward Israel? Do they any longer recognize the Jewish right to live throughout the Land of Israel (Palestine in their parlance) west of the Jordan,  as the international community had decided in 1922 in the Mandate for Palestine issued to the UK for the purpose of erecting the Jewish National Home?  Today old commitments are forgotten. In fact, prominent EU member states voted at the UN Security Council for a resolution calling it a crime for Israelis to live east of the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line, even in Jerusalem, a city that has had a Jewish majority since 1853, if not before, whereas all Jews were ethnically cleansed from parts of Jerusalem --including the Old City's Jewish Quarter-- that were under Arab control after the 1947-1949 Israeli War of Independence. So the EU states represented in the UN SC favored apartheid against Jews by proclaiming that Jewish residence east of the Green Line, in Jerusalem too, was illegal according to international law, no less. That is what UN SC resolution 2334 has to say. Those EU states want to return Jews to their traditional status in Europe in the Middle Ages where often Jews were forced to live in ghettoes. Indeed, this demonstrates the cyclical nature of history. Out of the ghetto, now back to the ghetto.

Israel can hope for nothing decent at the upcoming French-sponsored "peace conference" in Paris. Bear in mind that the words, working-for-peace, can really mean working for war. There are strong grounds for assuming that the Paris war conference due to start on January 15 is meant to produce a resolution that will be taken to the UN Security Council before Donald Trump is inaugurated as US president on 20 January 2017 in order to prevent him from interfering in the gang up on Israel which Trump has already defined as "unfair". The Paris-to-New York time schedule is tight but possible. As the example of Euro treatment of Greece demonstrates, the EU and its member states can be not only stingy but harsh and cruel. Can Israel expect better from the EU after nearly 2000 years of discrimination and oppression of Jews and often of persecution?
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For more on the Eurozone's treatment of Greece, as well as the contrast between favoritism for the PLO/PA contrasted with stinginess with Greece, see here & here .

A quote from Il Sole-24 Ore (30 January 2012) on proposed reductions of medical coverage for Greeks:

Sul fronte previdenziale, la Troika fa notare che il 50% dei medicinali rimborsati dal sistema sanitario pubblico è generico, con prezzi bassi (e che vi è quindi spazio per ridurre l'esborso di denaro pubblico). [Il Sole-24 Ore, 30 Gennaio 2012  qui] 

EU Violates Its Own Principle of Transparency

The NGO Monitor organization has shown that EU funding for so-called "non-governmental organizations" operating in Israel and against Israel and flying the false flags of "human rights" and "peace" is anything but transparent. Yet transparency is supposed to be one of those principles of the European Union that were supposed to make it something new and different and admirable, something more democratic on the soil of the Old Continent.

Evelyn Gordon too has found that the European Union likes to cover its tracks and pretend that the results of "reports" by the bodies that it funds and sometimes invites to Brussels or Strasbourg to lecture on Israel's alleged evils towards those Arabs now fashionably called "Palestinians" are purely objective and motivated by the highest morality and justice, rather than by the desire to please one's European financiers.

Here is her too brief examination of the EU and its relationship with its Middle Eastern echo chamber:

In the three days since Israel passed a law mandating new reporting requirements for NGOs that are primarily funded by foreign governments, there’s one question I have yet to hear any of its critics answer. If, as they stridently claim, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with NGOs getting most of their funding from a foreign government, then why would simply being required to state this fact in all their publications exercise a “chilling effect” (the U.S. State Department) or “stigmatize” them (the New Israel Fund) or result in “constraining their activities” (theEuropean Union)?

The obvious answer is that the critics know perfectly well it isn’t alright: An organization that gets most of its funding from a foreign government isn’t a “nongovernmental” organization at all, but an instrument of that government’s foreign policy. In fact, with regard to the EU, that’s explicit in itsfunding guidelines: For an Israeli organization that conducts activities in the territories to be eligible for EU funding, it must comply with EU foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This, incidentally, also explains why 25 of the 27 organizations affected by the law are left-wing: The far-left is the only part of Israel’s political spectrum that shares Europe’s opinions on the conflict, and hence, that Europe is willing to fund.

Yet if an organization is an instrument of a foreign country’s foreign policy, it’s very hard to argue that it’s an objective “human rights organization,” as the organizations in question bill themselves. Rather, it’s an overtly political organization that seeks to pressure Israel into adopting the foreign government’s preferred policies. And making this known definitely could be “stigmatizing,” in the sense that Israelis might be less willing to trust an organization’s assertions once they realize it has a not-so-hidden policy agenda that could be influencing its reports.

That, however, is precisely why Israelis have a need and a right to know where these organizations’ funding is coming from–especially given this funding’s sheer scale. And it’s also why there’s nothing remotely undemocratic about the law, as explained in depth by legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich here.

Nevertheless, if this is really what the law’s critics fear, then they’re behind the times. In the years since the idea of legislating this law first arose, most of the organizations in question have made themselves so toxic that it’s hard to see how information about their foreign funding could make Israelis view them any more negatively. Thus the more likely impact of publicizing their funding sources won’t be to delegitimize the organizations, but to delegitimize their donors–which is precisely why Europe, which provides most of this funding, is so worried.

Currently, a nontrivial portion of Europe’s influence in Israel comes from the fact that Israelis still admire it and, therefore, want it to like their country, not merely to trade with it. The fact that Europe is Israel’s biggest trading partner obviously also matters greatly, but the emotional angle, which stems mainly from Europe’s role as part of the democratic West, shouldn’t be underrated.

Now consider how that admiration might be affected by the discovery of how much money Europe gives, say, Breaking the Silence. This organization, which compiles “testimony” by Israeli soldiers about alleged abuses, is unpopular in Israel for many reasons–because Israelis don’t think its reports accurately reflect their army’s actions (see here for oneegregious example); because its “testimony” is strictly anonymous, making it impossible to investigate its allegations; and because it spends most of its time and effort marketing its reports abroad, convincing many Israelis that it’s more interested in tarnishing Israel’s image than in getting the army to improve its behavior. But last month, two incidents brought its reputation to a new low.

The first was Mahmoud Abbas’ infamous address to the European Parliament, in which he repeated a medieval blood libel by claiming rabbis were ordering their followers to poison Palestinian wells. This accusation originated in a report by a Turkish news agency that cited Breaking the Silence as its source, which sounded highly unlikely. Except then the Israeli website NRG published a video showing one of the organization’s founders claiming that settlers had engineered the evacuation of a Palestinian village by poisoning its well. And a respected left-wing journalist, Ben-Dror Yemini, published a column with further documentation of both the organization’s claim and its falsity. So it turned out BtS actually was spreading a medieval blood libel.

Then, the following week, a group of reservists went public with their experiences of how BtS collects its testimony – which turns out to entail both harassment and deception. After their discharge from the army, the organization called them repeatedly to urge them to talk about their experiences in the 2014 Gaza war; one man said he was called eight or nine times. But when they finally acquiesced, they discovered that the organization had cherry-picked from their accounts to present the army in the worst possible light.

To grasp just how toxic BtS has become, consider the fact that the president of Ben-Gurion University–who has scrupulously defended its right to speak at university seminars–nevertheless overturned a departmental decision to grant it a monetary prize last month. What Professor Rivka Carmi essentially said is that while she will defend its right to speak, she isn’t willing to have her university finance the organization. And when you’ve lost the universities, which are among the most left-wing organizations in Israel, you’ve really lost the whole country. [Commentary 14 July 2016, here]
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See Eugene Kontorovich on the NGO Transparency Law.

The Hypocritical Critics of Israel's New NGO Transparency Law

I am going to let the erudite law professor, Eugene Kontorovich,
explain the hypocrisy of the critics of the new, Israeli NGO
Transparency Law [Tablet magazine, 13 July 2016]:

Israel this week passed a law requiring domestic organizations
that are primarily funded by foreign governments to disclose 
this connection in their communications with the government. 
The law, shepherded by Ayelet Shaked, is totally neutral with
regard to the activities of the funded organization. However,
European governments that fund political groups only on the 
left- and far-left of the political spectrum, have denounced the 
law in apocalyptic terms as undermining Israeli democracy and 
rightly inviting international opprobrium.

A major talking point of the law’s critics is that it has “no democratic 
parallel,” and that it puts Israel in the category of non-democratic 
regimes like Russia, and even sets it on the road to fascism. But 
if these claims are true, there is little hope for democracy in the 
U.S., which has had similar rules for decades, and imposed new
ones a few years ago without a peep of international objection.

Critics of the Israeli law generally concede that the required
disclosures are legitimate. They object that the application of 
such disclosure requirements only to groups funded by foreign 
governments, as opposed to those funded by foreign private
individuals (who, unlike the EU, support both left- and right-
-wing political NGOs), are arbitrary and therefore sets Israel 
apart from other democracies. Both claims are specious.

First of all, treating foreign government contributions 
differently from private ones is entirely commonplace and 
rational, especially in the case of Israel. Governments are 
indeed different from rich individuals. Governments have 
foreign policies, trade rules, and United Nations votes
—and they use the groups they fund in Israel to produce 
documents that they then invoke when taking those actions. 
Private people have no similar powers. As a matter of basic 
democratic integrity, groups that depend largely on 
government funds should not be able to advertise their 
“NGO” status without at least some small-print clarification.

Moreover, Israel has good cause to take a different approach
to the issue than other Western democracies because the 
outsized role of foreign—and specifically European-funded—
groups is particularly egregious in Israel. Protecting the
integrity of Israeli democracy requires special transparency rules.

First, Israel is unique in the sheer scale of the foreign government
sponsorship of domestic political groups. For example, the 
European Union alone has in recent years given roughly 1.2 
million Euro a year for political NGOs in the U.S,. and roughly an
order of magnitude more in Israel—a vastly larger per capita
amount. This is magnified by similar imbalances in funding by 
individual European countries. There is a unique secrecy 
concerning the processes by which funding is granted to Israeli 
non-profits by the EU and many individual governments, 
including refusals in response to Freedom of Information requests.

Secondly, Europe itself has unique rules about funding Israeli
groups, which have no parallel elsewhere. Under Article 15 of 
the EU’s special guidelines for funding Israeli groups, 
organizations dealing with the territories are only eligible for 
funding if they declare that their activities promote EU foreign 
policy, and the EU agrees. These are groups that get the bulk 
of their funding from the EU, but only if they promote Brussels’s
interests—the very definition of a foreign agent.

Indeed, even the United States uses NGOs as proxies to meddle
in internal Israeli affairs. As the U.S. Senate Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) reported yesterday, 
the State Department funded an Israeli political organization
that later ran a campaign dedicated to ousting Israeli Prime 
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The distinction between getting money from a foreign government
and a foreign person is basic, and reflected in U.S. law. The House 
of Representatives requires from those who testify before it a 
disclosure of monies received specifically from foreign governments
—just like the Israeli law.

More egregiously, the Israeli law is so clearly aligned with the
American Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) that both 
Obama Administration officials and political groups have made 
the false claim that unlike the Israeli measure, FARA applies “equally” 
to foreign governments and foreign people. This is demonstrably 
false as a matter of the intent, application, and text of FARA. In 
fact, FARA only applies, in law and practice, to donations from 
foreign governmental actors.

[to continue reading go here]

Contemptible Europe: EU & non-EU Collaborated with PLO Terrorism against Israel

We have written here at Emet m'Tsiyon about the corruption of the European Union. The corruption also extends to Switzerland, a non-EU state. Lately, the EU wants to label products from Jewish enterprises from the parts of the ancient homeland beyond the old, 1949 armistice line. What Westerners call the "West Bank" which the UN's 1947 partition plan proposal called "Samaria and Judea." This EU policy denies Jewish rights to dwell and produce in those parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, whereas the Land of Israel was recognized in international law as the Jewish National Home (League of Nations in 1922, etc). This EU policy constitutes anti-Jewish racism and anti-Jewish apartheid.

 Moreover, the EU has shown itself stingy and cruel to Greece, one of its member states, plunging Greece into a grave economic crisis, thus failing to abide by one of the EU's supposedly cardinal principles, that is, solidarity among the members of the Union in time of need.

However, Switzerland, preserving its facade of neutrality, is also guilty of collaborating with Arab terrorism against Jews and Israel. The Swiss are even worse because Switzerland is the headquarters of the International Red Cross, the world red cross movement, and the International Committee of the Red Cross which is a semi-official arm of the Swiss government which played a morally corrupt role in the Holocaust by deliberately withholding information it had about the early stages of the Holocaust and other acts of commission and omission.

New information has lately come out about Switzerland's dirty role in promoting Arab terrorism. Vic Rosenthal at the Abu Yehuda blog has done a great job of compiling and laying out for the reader many of the corrupt acts and policies of the European Union and supposedly "neutral" Switzerland. His recent blog post on the subject begins with the morally corrupt Swiss. Bear in mind, that Swiss corruption also bears on the morally corrupt and anti-Israel ICRC [international committee of the red cross]:
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Posted on January 24, 2016 by Vic Rosenthal

It has been revealed that a secret deal kept Switzerland free of PLO terrorism:

According to the author, Swiss journalist Marcel Gyr, Switzerland was in turmoil after a spate of Palestinian terror attacks, including the February 1970 bombing of a Swissair flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv, which killed all on board shortly after takeoff. Gyr recounts that in the wake of the attacks in 1969 and 1970, then-foreign minister Pierre Graber contacted the PLO clandestinely and without informing his fellow ministers, the BBC reported Friday. …

Graber, through a Swiss member of parliament, purportedly reached an agreement with the PLO to free those charged for [a deadly 1969 attack on an El Al plane in Zurich] in return the release of the hostages in Jordan. Furthermore, he agreed that Switzerland would “quietly shelve” the investigation into bombing of the Swissair plane, and make a diplomatic push for international recognition of the PLO.

The Swiss MP, Jean Ziegler, now 81, confirmed that he had been the go-between and said “This might be absolutely shocking, but the reward was that there were no more attacks.”

Shocking? No, it was standard operating procedure. Take Italy for example:

…former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed that the government of Italy agreed to allow Arab terrorist groups freedom of movement in the country in exchange for immunity from attacks in Italy. Cossiga wrote that the government of the late Prime Minister Aldo Moro reached a “secret non-belligerence pact between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance [sic] organizations, including terrorist groups,” in the 1970s. According to the former president, it was Moro himself who designed the terms of the agreement with the foreign Arab terrorists. Ironically, Moro later met his death at the hands of homegrown Italian terrorists, the Red Brigades, in 1978. [we can add to this paragraph the apparent guilt of PLO terrorists for the awful Bologna train station massacre circa 1980 for which an Italian neo-fascist was sentenced to jail, whereas the bomb was set in the train station by Germans, members of the Red Army Fraction, who were working for a PLO terrorist sub-group].

Even Germany, with its “special relationship” to Israel, sold its soul. Matt Rees, in his book Cain’s Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East (p. 100) explained,

Arafat put Zakaria Baloush in charge of European operations and contacts. He built a fine relationship with Italian antiterrorist intelligence. His biggest coup, however, was a secret mission to West Germany. Through Libyan intelligence, West Germany asked the PLO for a deal. In 1980 Zakaria went to West Germany with a delegation of PLO officials. They agreed not to carry out any attacks on West German territory. In return they were allowed to operate in West Germany and exchange information with the West Germans.

Today European governments and the European Union provide a hefty part of the cost of running the PLO-based Palestinian Authority, spend millions of Euros financing illegal Arab construction in Area C – the part of Judea/Samaria that according to the Oslo Accords is under full Israeli control – and of course provide tens of millions to Israeli left-wing NGOs which act as a fifth column inside Israel. These NGOs, which have been called “wholly-owned subsidiaries” of the EU and European governments, provide raw material for anti-Israel UN resolutions, ‘lawfare’ against Israeli leaders and IDF soldiers, and provoke violent confrontations to try to destabilize the country. There is no doubt that this anti-state movement would barely exist were it not for European subsides.

The hypocrisy of claiming to oppose terrorism while giving its greatest perpetrators a free pass is obvious. It is no less hypocritical to oppose Israeli construction in disputed areas while paying for illegal Arab building there, and to require products of Judea/Samaria to have special labels while products of countless other “occupied” and disputed territories in the world need not be labeled.

The PLO is possibly one of the most malign entities to come into being in the 20th century, no less than the Nazi party or the Stalinist soviet regime, albeit on a smaller scale. In the years from its founding in 1964 and through its unfortunate legitimization by Israel as the representative of the Palestinians – one of the two greatest strategic mistakes made by an Israeli government since the founding of the state – the PLO brought terrorism into the mainstream of international politics, started wars and destabilized governments. It always kept its primary objective foremost: to destroy Israel by killing Israeli Jews. Thanks to Oslo it now has the status of a governmental authority.

The Palestinian Authority has no economy to speak of except the international dole, and much of this flows directly into the Swiss bank accounts of PLO officials. Some is also used to pay PLO fighters that are incarcerated in Israel for murder and terrorism, as well as pensions for the families of ‘martyrs’, who died in the process of killing Jews. Over the years, literally billions of dollars of aid that has been given to ‘the Palestinians’ has been used to support terrorism and the lifestyle of PLO honchos.

The PLO never allowed any voices to be heard among the Palestinian Arabs except those calling for confrontation. Moderates were liquidated and a reign of fear established. The PLO rules the areas under its control with an iron fist. Those who want to cooperate with Israel in any way are silenced.

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas claims to be opposed to “violence,” but what he means is that he does not advocate that the PLO return to organized attacks on Israelis using firearms and explosives. On the other hand, he encourages what he calls “popular resistance,”calling on individual Palestinians and groups on their own to kill Jews with knives, Molotov cocktails, stones, automobiles, meat cleavers, and so on. And the PA continues to name schools, streets and sports teams after terrorists, as well as treating the ‘martyrs of the popular resistance’ as heroes in its official media. It also makes numerous false accusations to stir up trouble, such as that Israel plans to build a third Temple on the Temple Mount, or that soldiers and police murder Palestinians and plant knives nearby.

The PLO/PA’s educational system continues to present Israeli Jews as subhumans who stole the land from them and to present the recovery of all of ‘Palestine’ from the river to the sea and the expulsion of the Jews as their objective, and not the creation of a peaceful Palestinian state on part of the territory. This system and the PA media which glorify martyrdom in the name of Palestine are directly responsible for children as young as 11 trying to murder Jews and often being killed themselves.

The PLO is a cancer in the international body. Initially given life by Egypt in 1964 as another weapon against Israel, it took its own direction when it was taken over by Yasser Arafat in 1968. It drew strength from the great-power conflict of the cold war, when it was armed by the Soviets as part of their struggle against the West. More recently it has parasitized the US (which provides the PA with $400 million/year, including a program to arm and train its ‘security’ forces) and of course the EU which gives it somewhat less. It’s difficult to determine the total amount of international aid, because it comes through many different sources (the US, UN, EU and other donors) and multiple programs. But it is at least $1 billion/year.

What is truly shocking is not that the Europeans made deals with the devil in order to protect themselves. It’s that after all these years nobody – not even Benjamin Netanyahu – has been prepared to stand up and say “enough.”

Enough money and assistance has been given to these terrorist murderers. Enough blackmail has been paid. Enough resources that could have been used to help alleviate hunger and fight disease have been squandered on this destabilizing force which has demonstrated over and over that its primary objective – its only objective – isn’t peace, but the destruction of a nation.

One of the main reasons that the PLO has continued to exist is that Israel since Oslo has believed or pretended to believe that it is in some sense a peace partner. Now that there seems to finally be a consensus here that the Oslo idea has blown up in our faces and there will not be a two-state solution in the near future, Israel has a great opportunity to do the world – including the Palestinian Arabs – a favor.

The PLO and its creature the PA has proven to be a failure – a failure as a peace partner, and a failure as a governing authority for the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Israel could root out and destroy this cancer by removing the PLO from power, disarming its militias, and going back to its pre-Oslo position that it would only negotiate with non-terrorist entities.

This might end up with Israel in full control of the territories again, something that many Israelis see as a burden they are loathe to undertake. But in the long term there is no alternative. The PLO, like a tumor, can’t be fixed. It must be removed.

Now the EU Is Facing Subversion by Russia, Doing What the EU Does to Israel

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Europe

The EU and US have lately been complaining about the non-profit organization transparency bill being promoted by Ayelet Shaked, Israel's minister of Justice. They complain that it inhibits democracy, human rights and freedom, etc, the usual excuses for their attempts to bend Israel to their will so that it will capitulate to Arab fascists, jihadists, and genocidists --embodied in Fatah and Hamas-- and give up territory to them so that it loses its strategic terrain needed for defense against ground attacks. But now it turns out that Russia is supplying funds to political parties in EU countries that work against the EU. When Russia does it, it's not fair, it's not right, it's subversion. When the EU itself plus EU member states supply tens of millions of euros over the years to supposed Israeli "non-governmental organizations," supposed non-profit bodies, instead of using the money to help needy EU citizens, in Greece for example, then that's OK. That's democracy. But democracy depends on transparency, a supposed value of the EU. However, when Israel wants to subject foreign-funded so-called NGOs to transparency requirements, then that is not nice, not fair, not democratic. Just by the way, NGO Monitor has pointed out that the EU funding to the "palestinian authority" is anything but transparent. It is often very difficult for NGO Monitor to find out from official EU sources which "NGOs" the EU is funding and with how much money. Hypocrisy thy name is Europe.

Of course, when the shoe is on the other foot, when Russia does it to the EU, then . . . . See below:

American intelligence agencies are to conduct a major investigation into how the Kremlin is infiltrating political parties in Europe, it can be revealed.
James Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence, has been instructed by the US Congress to conduct a major review into Russian clandestine funding of European parties over the last decade. . . .
The review reflects mounting concerns in Washington over Moscow’s determination to exploit European disunity in order to undermine Nato, block US missile defence programmes and revoke the punitive economic sanctions regime imposed after the annexation of Crimea.
The US move came as senior British government officials told The Telegraph of growing fears that “a new cold war” was now unfolding in Europe, with Russian meddling taking on a breadth, range and depth far greater than previously thought.
“It really is a new Cold War out there,” the source said, “Right across the EU we are seeing alarming evidence of Russian efforts to unpick the fabric of European unity on a whole range of vital strategic issues.”
A dossier of “Russian influence activity” seen by The Sunday Telegraph identified Russian influence operations running in France, the Netherlands, Hungary as well as Austria and the Czech Republic, which has been identified by Russian agents as an entry-point into the Schengen free movement zone.The US intelligence review will examine whether Russian security services are funding parties and charities with the intent of “undermining political cohesion”, fostering agitation against the Nato missile defence programme and undermining attempts to find alternatives to Russian energy.[The Telegraph, London, 16 January 2016. For the full article see here]

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In a related development, Austria, an EU member state, is passing legislation to limit foreign influence on Islamic religious institutions in Austria. See below:

More significantly, Paragraph 6.2 of the law seeks to limit the religious and political influence of foreign governments within the Austrian Muslim community by prohibiting foreign countries -- presumably Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states -- from financing Islamic centers and mosques in Austria. [here]

More on the EU's Hypocrisy, Its Violation of its Own Supposed Values

Links added 2-3-2013

Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor continues to reveal the EU's moral corruption, its interference in Israel's internal politics against the rights of Jews and the  security of Jews. The EU funded the so-called Four Mothers movement which demanded Israeli retreat from Lebanon. After PM Ehud Barak succumbed to pressure from 4 Mothers & other groups, some of them also funded by the EU, and retreated from Israel's security zone in Lebanon in 2000, the Hizbullah was empowered as a result to reinforce its control of Lebanon -- and to do one of the things it likes best, attacking  Israel and killing Jewish civilians.  Israel  was  subject after the retreat and up to the end of the 2006 war to frequent terrorist attacks, kidnappings and rocket attacks, no less than before, on the northern front. The 2nd Lebanon War of 2006 saw  nearly 4000 rockets shot at Israel, killing about 135 soldiers and civilians. The previously peaceful city of Haifa was struck by many rockets. Likewise struck were Qiryat Shmonah, 'Akko [Acre], and Nahariyah. This war was due to the retreat from the Security Zone and the consequent strengthening of Hizbullah. By the way, whereas Hizbullah had an estimated 4000 rockets during the 2006 war, it now has an estimated 60,000 rockets or more. Of course there was a UN Security Council resolution supposedly stopping the war in 2006 and telling the Hizb not to bring in more rockets and not to station its murderous militia or its weapons south of the Litani River. But the Hizb violated UN SC res 1701 with impunity.

 Many thanks due to the European Union's "peace" policy for Jewish and Lebanese suffering. Those who strive to bring "peace," often have a forked tongue.

Here are excerpts from Steinberg's op ed in HaAretz:

On 29 September 1999, a small committee of the European Commission met to allocate €5 million for "Middle East Peace Projects" to what are ostensibly non-governmental organizations (NGOs). No protocol or record was published for the public, in contrast to most meetings involving EU allocations. This committee awarded grants to a number of groups, including "The Four Mothers Movement to Leave Lebanon in Peace"(€250,000); and to Peace Now (€400,000) for, as recorded in the protocol, promoting their political agenda among "a social group that traditionally has anti-peace views and votes Likud" and among "immigrants from the former Soviet Union."

The only reason that we have this information is due to a leaked protocol from this single meeting. In the thirteen years that have followed, all documents related to EU funding for dozens of Israeli and Palestinian political NGOs have been labeled top secret - reminiscent of the most highly classified military plans and nuclear weapons designs. As a result, even members of the European Parliament are also denied substantive information.

. . . . .

What can explain this total absence of accountability, and the Court's rubber stamp approval? Perhaps EU officials fear being held responsible for wasting taxpayer funds, particularly during a deep economic crisis. While the EU funds a few political advocacy NGOs in other democracies (three in the U.S., a handful in Canada, for example – and not in secret), there is nothing comparable to the scale of its involvement in Israeli civil society. The total annual amount being channeled from the EU (including the European Instrument for Human Rights and Democracy and other frameworks), and individual governments (EU member states, [plus] Norway and Switzerland) to Israeli political advocacy groups is one of the official secrets.

. . . . .

Indeed, instead of peace, European funding has added to the violence and conflict. In 1999, the Mothers Movement used their EU grant to finance a political campaign that played a central role in the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 (in this very limited sense, the EU policy succeeded). But then Hezbollah's attacks increased, eventually leading to the 2006 war. It would not look good for EU officials to be seen as having been even partly responsible (by acting irresponsibly) for these events.

. . . . .

European officials understandably fear public criticism of their role in alienating millions of Israelis who reject the neo-colonialist effort to use groups like Peace Now to manipulate Israeli democracy. €600 million from European taxpayers allows their well-compensated lawyers and public relations firms to flood the courts with frivolous political lawsuits, and to travel around the world campaigning against Israel. This European infringement on Israeli sovereignty has become a hot issue. . . . .

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See Steinberg's full article here.

Steinberg  responds to a critic of the above article. 

LINKS ADDED 2-3-2013 
Op ed in Jerusalem Post [here]

Report on EU funding by NGO Monitor [here]

A page of links to NGO Monitor issues regarding the EU [here] -- a summary of the

UPDATING 6-9-2013 EU hides its financing for anti-peace "ngos" here.

European Union Violates Its Ostensible Principles

At bottom, link added 1-8-2013, UPDATING 6-9-2013
  
Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.
Eliyahu m'Tsiyon

Europe, and the European Union within it, have played a central role in the acts of treachery against Israel and the Jews, some of them described in the three previous posts and to be described in Part IV of the Broken Promises series. Of course, the EU regularly violates the lofty principles on which it supposedly stands. For almost three years it has been quite flagrantly violating the principle of solidarity among the peoples of the Union in the case of Greece where EU stinginess  toward suffering Euro brethren is frankly shocking. While stingy with their Greek brethren, whose living standards have been forced down severely by the demands of the EU and its ECB [European Central Bank] and of the IMF [International Monetary Fund] --even to the point of cutting health benefits & funds for medicines-- the EU keeps on funding the "Palestinian Authority" with about 1/2 billion euros per year, plus grants from EU member states  and special grants for various projects. Much of the money goes into the pockets of PA leaders and officials and into the pockets of their families. The PA schools and communications media constantly make genocidal hate indoctrination, propaganda and incitement against Israel and all Jews. This use of EU funds does not lead to a reduction in funding, whereas funds given to Greece on account of its economic crisis are closely supervised and sometime funds  are withheld. This does not happen to the PA.


Another principle violated is transparency in the work of the EU itself. The lack of transparency is strikingly evident in the EU's attitude toward Israel, the collective Jew, whereas in fact Jews have been the target of Euro hatred since the Roman Empire.Transparency is necessary for real democratic government. The EU lacks transparency, inter alia, in the way it allocates its funding for anti-Israel so-called "non-governmental organizations" [NGOs]. The recent case of NGO Monitor's efforts to get real information out of the EU about which "NGOs" the EU is to fund and on what grounds is instructive. Obviously, the EU does not want peace between Israel and the Arabs but I will go into that another time.

Here is NGO Monitor's account of how the EU shamelessly violates its own principle of transparency, with the approval of the so-called European Court of Justice.

EU Court Decision on NGO Monitor Case Highlights EU’s Secrecy

NGO Monitor December 27, 2012
On November 27, 2012, the European Court of Justice ruled on an NGO Monitor petition concerning the EU’s lack of transparency in its NGO funding practices. The court found that the EU did not provide documents requested by NGO Monitor in a timely fashion, and that this “must be regarded as an implicit decision to refuse access.” However, it also upheld the denial of access, essentially permitting the EU to hide its NGO decision making from the public.

Background

The European Union funnels tens of millions of taxpayer euros to political advocacy NGOs every year. Many of these groups engage in campaigns and activities that are entirely inconsistent with declared European foreign policy; the activities include BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions), “one state” proposals, anti-normalization with Israel campaigns, and abusing the courts through frivolous “war crimes” cases. Not only do these activities contradict European policies, but they promote conflict and violence.

Moreover, the available evidence suggests that the EU has been unethically seeking to manipulate Israeli democracy by funding political advocacy NGOs such as Adalah, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Mossawa, Machsom Watch, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), and Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). Due to EU secrecy, the only available non-censored document is a leaked protocol from a meeting on NGO funding from 1999. This shows an explicit and concerted plan to support NGOs in an effort to manipulate Israeli voting patterns.
 
For the past decade, NGO Monitor has attempted to systematically track this funding, to allow European taxpayers, officials, Israelis, and Palestinians to independently evaluate and respond. As part of that process, in 2008, NGO Monitor submitted a detailed request to the EU, asking for documents related to this funding (under the EU’s Freedom of Information Law – FOI). After delaying compliance with the law for more than six months, the EU provided NGO Monitor with documents that were heavily redacted and whited out, essentially covering up all relevant information under the purported rationale of national security and proprietary interests.

Under the procedure mandated by the FOI law, NGO Monitor, represented by Asserson Law Offices, next turned to the European Court of Justice seeking compliance. The NGO Monitor petition noted that the EU was blocking independent evaluation of its NGO funding decisions, and preventing the public from knowing whether its practices are consistent with due process of law. In its response to the court, the European Commission admitted that officials had censored the meaningful details, including “the conclusions of the monitoring” and “the conclusions of the audit[s],” as well as “additional remarks” made by evaluators. The court also found that the EU did not provide the documents in a timely fashion, and that this ‘must be regarded as an implicit decision to refuse access.”

In direct contradiction, however, the court upheld the denial of access, and issued a decision without taking evidence or conducting hearings on NGO Monitor’s petition, nor providing NGO Monitor an opportunity to appear before the Court. This procedure is highly irregular, and highlights the degree to which the EU fears public release of the protocols for NGO funding decisions.
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The boldface emphasis is my own. The full account is here. Also see this report on the EU-NGO relationship.
Prof. Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor draws conclusions about the EU's surreptitious conduct regarding its subsidies to so-called "NGOs" in an op ed in HaArets. [so-called "NGOs" because they are not "non-governmental organizations" but rather are funded by governments and associations of governments such as the EU].  
More on EU funding thwarting peace from NGOMonitor here.

Part IV of the series "Another Broken Promise Made to Jews" will come soon.

Surreptitious Ways of Striking at Jews -- An Old Story

UPDATING 1&3 & 16 July 2010 [see link added to Jerome Corsi]
& 7-11,12 &8-23-2010 at bottom

Many roads go to Rome and to Jerusalem for that matter.

One way to get to Jerusalem is to go through "non-governmental organizations" --NGOs-- ostensibly popular, independent grass roots orgs. Maybe like the Free Gaza Movement. But Free Gaza is actually astroturf, fake grass roots. It was created by Fenton Communications with Qatari money. Qatar is one of those super-rich per capita Arab emirates on the Persian Gulf. Funny thing is though that the so-called "Left" which poses as anti-capitalist, doesn't mind super-rich capitalists as long as they're Arabs. And if super-rich Arabs put up money for their pet anti-Israel projects [which both rich Arabs and Judeophobic Westerners are fond of], then that's OK.

Don't forget that "Free Gaza" [they don't want to free the folks of Gaza from Hamas to be sure] teamed up with the present authoritarian regime of Erdogan. They don't mind Erdogan's war against the Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey [involving incursions into northern Iraq], nor his continued denial of Ottoman Turkey's genocide of Armenians, nor Turkey's occupation of northern Cyprus which led to ethnic cleansing of Greeks from the occupation zone [later paralleled by ethnic cleansing of ethnic Turks from the southern part of the island, the still independent Republic of Cyprus]. We may point out here parenthetically that some occupations are viewed more favorably than others. Just as "Free Gaza" couldn't care less about northern Cyprus being occupied, few in the West cared that Germany, Austria and Japan were occupied after WW 2 --and American troops are still in Germany and Japan, while Russia annexed huge areas of Japan and part of Germany and part of Finland. On the other hand, Israel is falsely accused of "occupying" parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, assigned by the League of Nations in 1922 to the Jewish National Home. But why go on with Western hypocrisy?

A semi-official branch of the US Govt, the Woodrow Wilson Center in DC, just last week gave an award to Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who recently called the Israeli boarding and seizure of the blockade-running Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, "Our 9/11." That hyperbole was worthy of an Arab, whom Turks often look down on. It is significant that the Wilson Center is headed by Lee Hamilton, a stuffed shirt white guy who is one of Obama's mentors [see previous post at bottom]. Hamilton praised Davutoglu. He "personifies the attributes we seek to honor at the Woodrow Wilson Center," Hamilton claimed. Just incidentally, Hamilton thereby contradicted the silly words of his spokeswoman who claimed that the award was not an "endorsement" of the Turkish FM. Now we have to wonder if the Wilson Center award to the Turkish FM was the White House's way of encouraging Turkey's anti-Israel policy, including the thugs on the Mavi Marmara ship. This is because, as said, Hamilton is one of Obama's mentors and John Brennan, Obama's so-called "counterterrorism czar" [pro-terrorism czar?], has a soft spot in his heart for both Hamas and Hizbullah. Brennan has also been tied to Free Gaza by Jerome Corsi of World Net Daily [here; also here]. Obama's old friends Bill Ayres & Bernardine Dohrn are also linked to Free Gaza [see link just above]

This use of surreptitious methods, of subterfuges, against Jews is an unfortunate part of Jewish history. It was common in the Russian tsarist empire more than 100 years ago. These methods
went so far as organizing pogrom mobs to attack Jews, including a nasty group of thugs called the Tshernotentsy, the Black Hundreds. Here is the historian Solomon Grayzel:

For the six million Jews in the Russian empire, the decade and a half before World War I was a period of oppression and heroism. Russia was in the midst of its long overdue struggle for general emancipation . . . the Jews naturally aligned themselves with the forces of liberalism. The tottering czarist system and its reactionary supporters resorted to the old game of identifying the revolutionaries with the Jews and attempting to turn attention away from the existing abuses by stirring up anti-Jewish feeling. A wave of pogroms swept over Russia. The massacre in Kishineff [now Chisinau in Moldova] at Easter 1903 saw dozens killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands of homes sacked. The cry of horror which went up all over the civilized world and among the liberal elements in Russia itself did not stop the government from instigating similar pogroms in the city of Homel and elsewhere. The only police interference was with the efforts of the Jews to defend themselves. [Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews (Philadelphia: JPS 1959), pp 708-709]

Does that last sentence sound familiar? The Russian police interfered "with the efforts of the Jews to defend themselves." How about the policy of the EU, UK, UN, OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference], Turkey and others to prevent Israel from defending the Jews of Sderot and the rest of the south of Israel? How about all that sympathy for the trials and travails of a territory ruled by Nazi-like Muslim terrorists, the Hamas? The Hamas Charter calls for murdering all the Jews at Judgment Day. The noble Western states want the Hamas to have all the concrete and steel that it needs to build bigger and better underground bunkers so the Hamas leaders will have somewhere to hide the next time that they provoke Israel with hundreds of missiles.

Now are there any other parallels between then and now? Yes, Virginia, there are other parallels. Then there was the Mendel Beilis case. Beilis was a Jew accused in Kiev of murdering a non-Jewish boy [a prefiguration of Muhammad al-Durah]. The case became a blood libel with the Tsarist govt pressing for conviction of Beilis, hoping to arouse a pogrom atmosphere [see Grayzel, pp 709-710]. Fortunately, Beilis was defended by some of the best, most respected Russian attorneys. He was acquitted in a jury trial by the jury. The real murderers of the boy who had disappeared were found.

What today is comparable to the Beilis case? First, the murdered boy has a parallel in young Muhammad al-Durah. But whereas the boy in Kiev had in fact been murdered by known criminals, al-Durah was not killed at the time and place alleged by France2's Charles Enderlin at the end of September 2000, in a notorious, very short film clip released by France2 free of charge to TV broadcasters throughout the world at that time. As we can see in the parts of the film taken by the same cameraman on that same day of al-Durah but not released to TV, little al-Durah was not killed and his death does not appear in the very short film clip meant to indict and convict Israel in a new blood libel, updated for the new century. A French court in Paris ordered Enderlin to produce the full, uncut film in court. He did not bring the full film but what he did bring was enough to overrule his accusation of libel against a media critic who had argued that the al-Durah affair was a hoax [an argument partly based on the reports of senior French journalists who had seen the full film or most of what was not shown on TV back in 2000]. Hence, today we don't know whether al-Durah is dead or alive , although in the parts of the film shown in court little Muhammad is shown holding a red cloth that might seem to be blood if you see it only for a few seconds.

Any other parallels? At least one, a host of false accusations are made against Israel. Some focus on alleged Israeli crimes against the Turkish jihadist thugs on the Mavi Marmara [one of them being an American citizen whose parents brought him to Turkey when he was 2 years old and never visited America afterwards] who are described as "peace activists" by the trained minions of Fenton Communications. The active Judeophobes in the United States show much more "sympathy" for that Turk of American birth than for the three thousand Americans murdered by jihadist fanatics not much different from the goons on the Mavi Marmara.

Then too we have the Goldstone "Fact Finding Mission" report prepared by the staff of the UN"human rights council" which is subject to the OIC, the most powerful bloc in the UN. The "goldstone report" was meant to be a trial and conviction in the court of public opinion worldwide of Israel and the Jews. Something like the Beilis trial. Another set of false charges as in the Beilis case.

We note that historian Solomon Grayzel was somewhat naive. He didn't know the "liberals" of today. Most of the most outspoken "liberals" around today are fascist rabble rousers and demagogures.
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More on the Award to the Turkish Foreign Minister Who Favored the Mavi Marmara Blockade Running Gambit
The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, 1/3 funded by the US Federal Govt, is giving Erdung's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, an award in the name of former president Wilson [here]. It is called the Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award. How kind of the Wilson Center, headed by one of Obama's mentors, Lee Hamilton, a former US representative!! Hamilton was co-author of the notorious Baker-Hamilton Report which recommended that the US shaft Israel and befriend the fascist regime in Damascus. For those who still believe in "Hope & Change", the Baker-Hamilton recommendations are part of Obama's foreign policy within the generally disastrous guidelines set by Zbig Brzezinski. For those who believe that centers and institutes named after illustrious historical figures and proclaiming lofty goals and principles have policies decided by sugar plum fairies, David Boyajian shows that the Wilson Center is closely connected to various large corporations that do big business with Turkey. Davutoglu is commonly considered the architect of Erdung's turn towards a pro-Muslim, pro-jihad policy.
The Wilson Center explains the award [here]. The Center's spokeswoman claims that it is not an "endorsement" of Davutoglu's views or deeds.
Claudia Rosett considers the award the decision of a fool [here]. Maybe somebody more sinister than a mere fool, methinks.
Michael Rubin has his doubts about the award [here]
The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, 1/3 funded by the US Federal Govt, is giving Erdung's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, an award in the name of former president Wilson [here]. It is called the Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award. How kind of the Wilson Center, headed by one of Obama's mentors, Lee Hamilton, a former US representative!! Hamilton was co-author of the notorious Baker-Hamilton Report which recommended that the US shaft Israel and befriend the fascist regime in Damascus. For those who still believe in "Hope & Change", the Baker-Hamilton recommendations are part of Obama's foreign policy within the generally disastrous guidelines set by Zbig Brzezinski. For those who believe that centers and institutes named after illustrious historical figures and proclaiming lofty goals and principles have policies decided by sugar plum fairies, David Boyajian shows that the Wilson Center is closely connected to various large corporations that do big business with Turkey. Davutoglu is commonly considered the architect of Erdung's turn towards a pro-Muslim, pro-jihad policy.
The Wilson Center explains the award [here]. The Center's spokeswoman claims that it is not an "endorsement" of Davutoglu's views or deeds.
Claudia Rosett considers the award the decision of a fool [here]. Maybe somebody more sinister than a mere fool, methinks.
Michael Rubin has his doubts about the award [here]
The ever sleazy and slimy Lee Hamilton proudly announced that Davutoglu "personifies the attributes we seek to honor at the Woodrow Wilson Center." So much for Hamilton's spokeswoman's claim that the award was not an "endorsement." Hamilton added that Davutoglu's "contributions have been numerous and significant." [here] Is Hamilton endorsing the Mavi Marmara pro-Hamas provocation as a "significant . . . contribution"??
Jennifer Rubin suggests that the US Govt stop funding the Wilson Center [here]

LINK ADDED 7-17-2010 Carlo Panella on Davutoglu's aggressive anti-Israel policy [qui in italiano].

UPDATING 7-3-2010 Fresno Zionism shows clear understanding of the role of Fenton Communications in the Western-Arab assault on Israel. He includes a document [here]

7-6-2010 Qatar wants credit for smearing Israel [here]
7-11-2010 US funding for Ghaddafi's son's "charitable foundation" which in turn is sending another "humano ship" to Gaza. Another curious coincidence.
Jodie Evans of Code Pink notoriety is part of the "Free Gaza movment" which does not intend to free Gazans from Hamas. Evans became notorious [or famous, if you like] for her leadership of Code Pink and its aggressive demonstrations against the war in Iraq while George Bush II was president. However, since her chosen one, Mr Barack Hussein Obama, became president and sent more troops to Afghanistan than Bush had, Jodie and Code Pink have had little or nothing to say about the war in Afghanistan, let alone vociferously protest it. Her and Code Pink's energies seem all to be focussed now on the alleged plight of Gaza, actually a much more prosperous place than Afghanistan. But Jodie and Code Pink are not against war as such, just against the wrong war. Hamas' war against the Jews seems A-OK, while the war in Afghanistan is not especially objectionable [here & here].
UPDATING 7-12-2010 Fenton Communications has supposedly decided not to renew its contract to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, a contract with the sheikha or "princess" of Qatar [here]

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UPDATING 7-16-2010 The New York Times finally got around to reporting the terrorist ties of IHH, the "charitable foundation" behind the Turkish Thug Armada, and IHH's ties to high Turkish govt officials, including PM Erdogan [here]
UPDATING 8-23-2010 Dr Aviva Efrat, a lecturer on Turkish affairs at Bar Ilan Univ: "Erdogan is suffering from very serious criticism domestically because unemployment is rising. One of the reasons for the large number of demonstrators against Israel is economic. Many of them receive payment for their participation in these demonstrations. A sizable part of them don't know what is written on the signs that they are carrying. They are an incited mob. . . . Erdgogan is a provocateur by his nature. That's the attitude towards him in his own foreign ministry. . . . He is a man who gets angry very quickly." Maqor Rishon, 7-2-2010 p 22.