The Netherlands stops subsidy to Palestinian aid organization | Inland

It concerns the Palestinian aid organization UAWC, which aims to professionalize Palestinian farmers in the West Bank. Earlier, Kaag temporarily stopped the subsidy after it emerged that two employees of the organization were involved in a bomb attack that killed a 17-year-old Israeli girl. The men were members of the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It turned out that their salary was partly paid from Dutch aid money to the UAWC.

When the aid money, which had amounted to about 21.5 million euros up to that point, was temporarily stopped, Kaag promised to have further investigations carried out into the possible links between UAWC and the terrorist organization.

This shows that although no indications of money flows between UAWC and the PFLP have been found, nor evidence for ‘organizational unity with or control by the PFLP’. However, the research bureau establishes individual ties with the terrorist organization at 34 employees of UAWC. In 12 cases there was even talk of a ‘double mandate’. “They held both leadership positions with UAWC and positions with the PFLP for an overlapping period of time.” According to the research, there are also links between the two organizations ‘at an organizational level’.

According to the cabinet, the external investigation has made it sufficiently plausible that there had been ties at an individual level between employees and board members of UAWC and the PFLP for quite some time. “The large number of UAWC board members with a dual mandate is particularly worrisome.” The cabinet therefore stops the payment to the agricultural organization.

The cabinet wants to start a new land and water program in the West Bank with other Palestinian organizations in the near future.

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