The German Bundestag's decision to define the BDS movement as anti-Semitic and urge public institutions to halt funding for groups involved in promoting or encouraging a boycott of Israel was welcomed by Israel and the West. As expected, the German parliament's decision was also severely criticized by members of the radical Left, including some in Israel and Jews abroad who see the boycott as the most effective way of fighting the existence of the Jewish state. Aside from the symbolic nature of the decision – it was the first passed by the parliament that linked BDS and anti-Semitism – it has practical aspects, as well. Will Germany officially stop funding organizations that support the eradication of Israel?
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The watchdog group NGO Monitor has submitted to the German government an initial list of Palestinian and Israeli organizations that are involved with and promote activity to isolate and delegitimize Israel and have received generous funding from Germany. NGO Monitor, which tracks the funding these groups receive, made it clear that the lack of transparency that characterizes the German foreign aid mechanism, and the supposedly independent status of German aid entities that receive government funding, could make it difficult to implement the Bundestag anti-BDS resolution.
A complicated network of nongovernmental organizations, both Palestinian and Israeli, that are active on a variety of issues – human rights, women's rights, LGBTQ issues, freedom of the press, medicine, and agriculture – are backing calls to boycott Israel while enjoying hefty German financial disbursements that mostly come from taxpayer money. It is impossible to assess precisely the extent of German aid to these groups because of the opacity of the German system, and also because the Palestinian groups are careful to obscure information about their funding sources and do not disclose the sources of their financial backing or publish annual financial reports.
The German government is one of the less transparent in Europe when it comes to aiding NGOs. The German government aid agency, GIZ, is legally an independent entity that is not obligated to provide transparency or required to publish regular reports about its activities. Various foundations and church institutions are also considered independent entities and the government is not involved in their internal decisions about how they use their own government-received funds. So the lack of transparency makes it possible for government money to find its way into the hands of organizations that promote anti-Semitism and BDS, some of which are even linked to terrorist groups.
The organizations whose names appear on the list NGO Monitor submitted to the government have all received support from German political foundations that are active in Israel, especially the left-leaning ones, as well as from right-wing parties, church institutions, and humanitarian groups. The limited information in NGO Monitor's possession about the extent of German aid that has been transferred to these organizations in the past two years indicates that the funding totals in the millions. And that is only what has been declared. Most of the entities that transfer aid and receive it do not report the amounts of the disbursements.
Responsibility for funding starts with transparency. The German government needs to follow in the footsteps of Denmark and the Netherlands and lay out clear guidelines that will be part of its funding contracts with Palestinian and Israeli NGOs. Organizations that meet the guidelines will be eligible for aid, and organizations that fail to comply with them will face sanctions. The government prohibition against funding groups that support BDS should also apply to NGOs, especially political and church-run ones, which receive funding from the German government and pass it along. All these entities are seen as German and they use money collected from the German taxpayers. In the eyes of the public, these organizations represent Germany in every sense.
If Germany is seriously committed to keeping its promise to Israel, it must prove itself by taking practical steps that will allow the Bundestag's historic decision to be enacted. Without these actions, the important decision will remain nothing but a hollow declaration.
