Reality check for the EU

One wonders whether the EU's paid officials (paid out of our tax revenues) really believe the nonsense they disseminate.

If they don't and all they are engaged in is cynical, money-grubbing play-acting at public expense, all well and good - at least they know what they are and whose errands they are running.

What is problematic, however, is if they really believe their own garbled, fairy-tale distortion of reality.

Take the EU's massive use of public funding to sabotage, subvert and deligitimise the Jewish State of Israel. From within that state.

“The EU’s funding of NGOs in Israel does not constitute meddling in Israeli political affairs,” says EU Ambassador to Israel Andrew Standley according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.

“There is a certain perception in Israeli society that what we are financing in Israel (is) aimed at influencing public policy in Israel,” Andrew Standley said. “The reality is that these are global programs.” He added: “The funding is not provided for a political agenda, but rather in support of a universal objective such as human rights … all over the planet”.

Really?

In the interests of transparency, it would be useful to examine the EU's records of its financing of and involvement in human rights programs in places such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iran, Somalia, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

It would be heartening to see evidence of robust EU condemnation of the ban on church construction in Saudi Arabia, along the lines of the robust EU condemnation of housing construction in East Jerusalem. Financial records and a list of the programs financed by the EU in these countries. Comparative tables juxtaposing records of campaign spending in Iran and Israel, Saudi Arabia and Israel, Pakistan and Israel – that sort of thing.

There’s no better way of allaying Israeli suspicions that the EU is using massive public funds to meddle in Israeli political affairs and that the Jewish state is the target of selective treatment.

There's no better way of allaying Israeli suspicions that the EU is implementing a concealed foreign policy strategy via a plethora of NGOs. Concealed by funding through irregular, non-transparent means and by the granting of semi-official status to organisations dedicated to the deconstruction of the world's only Jewish state, to be replaced by the world's 58th recognised Islamic state.


Useful links:
NGO Monitor: Foreign Government Funding for Political Activity in Israel
NGO Monitor: Promoting Israel's isolation
NGO Monitor: Boycott and Divestment Programs

NGO Monitor: KAIROS and Political Advocacy
NGO Monitor: EC Funding for Political NGOs
NGO Monitor: Trojan Horse: The Impact of European Government Funding for Israeli NGOs
NGO Monitor: A Clouded EU Presidency - Swedish Funding for NGO Rejectionism

CAMERA: Human Rights Watch Discredited Even By Its Founder
JCPA: The Media War Against Israel
JCPA/Dore Gold: Europe Seeks to Divide Jerusalem

Middle East Forum: NGOs Make War on Israel
Jerusalem Post/Herb Keinon: Biased 'Human Rights' NGOs
Spectator/Melanie Phillips: An Inconvenient Truth

Spectator/Melanie Phillips: Spot the Difference
Spectator/Melanie Phillips: Even Perfidy is Now Gutless in Albion
Gerald Steinberg: European Funding
The Independent: The Palestinian Arab Tragedy - What the NGOs Never Deal With

Fiery Spirited Zionist: Swedish NGO Demonises Israel
Atlas Shrugs: Europe Funds NGO Belligerence Against Israel
IsraelMatsav: The Swedes Pay Attention
Arutz Sheva: Sweden Carrying Out Radical Anti-Israel Campaign