Why Would It Occur To Us To Check Whether NGOs For A Cause Steeped In Terrorism Are Linked To Terrorism?

by Inge Boer, European Commission Directorate Secretary

Brussels, October 18 – You’re being unreasonable, Hans. No one in his right mind would suggest it appropriate to look into the associations and personnel of recipients of our aid to determine whether those associations or personnel have engaged in, supported, or otherwise advocated for political violence against civilians when all the leaders of the larger movement in which those recipients operate have consistently held up political violence against civilians as the primary vehicle for achieving their aims.

Really, Hans. We are the foreign policy arm of the European Union. Your attitude implies that we bear some responsibility to look into the activities and membership of our funding beneficiaries in Palestine. Where did you get such an absurd idea? Our job is to further EU foreign policy goals, not to vet our subcontractors as if their methods and ideologies matter.

Please spare me the haranguing about ethics. We’re Europeans. We only demand ethics from Jews, and, on occasion, from believing Christians. Ethics do not figure into this one whit. Ethics are an orientalist legacy of racist colonialism.

Were you to argue it looks bad, you might make some headway. There, too, counterarguments undermine your position, but at the very least, observing the public relations risks of funding groups that overlap in personnel with other, nominally separate, groups, that shoot civilians, bomb buses, and laud stabbing attacks, carries some rhetorical weight.

The thing is, Hans, we don’t actually acre about that, either. We’re the continent that stood idly as Nazis systematically killed millions of Jews. We’ll never forgive the Jews for the Holocaust; any suffering we can inflict on them, even by Arab proxy, makes us feel better. All the more so if we can frame it as righteous support for Palestinians under “foreign” occupation. This, after telling Jews to “go back to Palestine” for a couple of thousand years.

The biggest obstacle, and a point you haven’t made, is that our own regulations and procedures call for the vetting of our funding recipients to eliminate the actual terrorist ones. But come on. You cannot seriously suggest we follow that provision. No one else does. Look at the governments of the Netherlands and Germany, for example. Or Sweden. And how could I forget Ireland! Come on.

Really, Hans. A man of your experience should know better.

Anyway, enjoy your auditing trip to Khan Yunis and Qatar. Please convey my good wishes to Mr. Haniyeh.

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