Video: Has The Dutch Government Been Funding The Electronic Intifada?

The Jerusalem Post has been covering the story of how the Dutch government may be indirectly funding the anti-Semitic Electronic Intifada:

The Dutch government has been funding the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, a Dutch aid organization that finances the Electronic Intifada website that, NGO Monitor told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, is anti-Semitic and frequently compares Israeli policies with those of the Nazi regime.

NGO Monitor’s exposure of Dutch government funding for the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) prompted Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal to say on Thursday to the Post, "I will look into the matter personally. If it appears that the government subsidized NGO ICCO does fund Electronic Intifada, it will have a serious problem with me.”

That government funding amounted to €124 million in 2008. The European Commission also funds ICCO.

The purpose of supporting the Electronic Intifada is of course in the interests of balance, though the ICCO has an odd way of putting it:

The ICCO website devotes a page to Electronic Intifada, praising its work as “an internationally recognized daily news source” that provides a counterweight to “positive reporting” about Israel. ICCO’s website notes its three-year funding pledge for Electronic Intifada.

If ICCO's goal was to find a good source of negative reporting about Israel as a counterweight to the "positive reporting", then you know that ICCO has found their man:

NGO Monitor told the Post that “EI executive director Ali Abunimah is a leader in delegitimization and demonization campaigns against Israel. In his travels and speaking engagements, facilitated by Electronic Intifada’s budget, he calls for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and routinely uses false apartheid rhetoric."

“Abunimah also equates Israel to Nazi Germany, comparing the Israeli press to Der Stürmer, referring to Gaza as a ‘ghetto for surplus non-Jews,’ and claiming that ‘Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.’” NGO Monitor criticized ICCO’s employment of Mieke Zagt, who is “the ICCO official directing the funding to EI,” a “former employee of Amnesty International’s Middle East division, and a vocal proponent of BDS herself.” BDS is the abbreviation for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

Donators to ICCO may have been under the impression that the money they were giving to the ICCO was actually going to projects.

Apparently, the ICCO did not have something that constructive in mind.

Technorati Tag: Electronic Intifada and ICCO and Ali Abunimah.