Foreign donors ‘funding hate on Britain’s streets’
Lack of transparency over pro-Palestine groups’ funding a ‘standing invitation to abuse’
NICOLE LAMPERT
Pro-Palestine marches are being funded by a complex web of foreign donors, far-Left groups and state actors, a report by NGO Monitor has revealed.
The report by the US charity watchdog NGO Monitor found examples of Iranian and American far-Left groups bankrolling anti-Israel groups in the UK, creating an “ecosystem” of disruption.
It also found cryptocurrency was increasingly being used to hide funding sources for organisations accused of antisemitism, with gift aid also being used by these organisations.
The report’s authors also accuse organisations of deliberately targeting young people with anti-Israel material.
Lord Walney, a former government extremism tsar, will release the report in the House of Commons later on Wednesday.
He will say: “A phenomenon widely portrayed as spontaneous and grassroots is, in significant part, the product of a coordinated and internationally financed network” and “a troubling number of the organisations within it either fall outside any meaningful regulatory framework or maintain connections to actors that no democratic state should tolerate”.
The report calls for a wholesale reform of Britain’s regulatory system to improve transparency over how the groups and charities behind pro-Palestine marches are funded.
The report looked at 40 of the organisations who have sponsored some of the main pro-Palestine demonstrations from the well-known Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Amnesty UK to less-known Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). As the Telegraph has previously reported, the IHRC has links to Iran but in the space of five years collected £458,000 in public funds via
gift aid in the last six years.
Several other groups, including Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), receive hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money either through direct government funding or Gift Aid.
The report found that at least 11 of the 40 either have links to extremist organisations or have officials who have met extremist actors.
The Telegraph: continue reading
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(UKR)