Israel is sending an envoy to Washington amid a deepening rift with the Biden administration over six outlawed Palestinian rights groups, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.

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Israel last week designated the prominent Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations, sparking international criticism and repeated assertions by Israel's top strategic partner, the United States, that there had been no advance warning of the move.

Israel's decision marked what critics say was a major escalation of its decades-long crackdown on political activism in the occupied territories. The US State Department has said it would seek more information on the decision.

Joshua Zarka, a senior Foreign Ministry official, told Army Radio the envoy would "give them all the details and to present them all the intelligence" during his visit in the coming days.

Zarka said he personally updated US officials on Israel's intention to outlaw the groups last week, and said he believed Washington wanted a more thorough explanation of the decision.

The rights groups decision is emerging as a test of the relationship between the Biden administration and Israel's new government, which was formed in June by eight politically disparate parties. The coalition ended the 12-year rule of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu's government enjoyed broad support from the Trump administration, which moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and cut funding to the Palestinians.

The Biden administration has mostly restored traditional foreign policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. But with the US focused on other pressing domestic and foreign issues, the conflict was expected to take a backseat.

The fractious coalition government has also sought to minimize the Palestinian issue, agreeing not to make major moves that might threaten its stability. But in recent weeks, it has ramped up focus on the conflict, offering a number of goodwill gestures to Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip and also pushing forward on building thousands of new homes for Jewish settlers – and for Palestinians as well.

Israel has for years alleged the NGO groups' links to the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization, but even the Netanyahu governments stopped short of labeling them terrorist organizations.

The announcement has outraged the activist community in Israel, which in recent years has also faced pushback from successive Israeli governments. In a joint statement Monday, more than 20 Israeli human rights groups, including some of the country's leading, most established organizations, condemned the step, calling it "a draconian measure that criminalizes critical human rights work."

Meanwhile, activists from Zionist organization Im Tirtzu on Monday filed a complaint with the Israeli police against left-wing lawmakers and organizations who expressed sympathy for the six Palestinian NGOs.

On Tuesday, the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also criticized the designation, saying it was "an attack on human rights defenders" and calling for it to be rescinded.

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The declaration against the Palestinian rights groups appeared to pave the way for Israel to raid their offices, seize assets, arrest staff and criminalize any public expressions of support for the groups. Most of the targeted organizations document alleged human rights violations by Israel as well as the Palestinian Authority, both of which routinely detain Palestinian activists.

The designated groups are Al-Haq, a human rights group founded in 1979, as well as the Addameer rights group, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.

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Activists from Zionist organization Im Tirtzu on Monday filed a complaint with the Israeli police against left-wing lawmakers and organizations who expressed sympathy for the six Palestinian NGOs recently classified as terrorist organizations by the Israeli government.

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The targets of the complaint include organizations such as B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights and Physicians for Human Rights.

Individuals include Lior Amihai, executive director of Yesh Din; and MK Gaby Lasky from the left-wing Meretz party as well as Environment Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg, who previously served as leader of Meretz.

The basis for the complaint lies in Israel's Counter-Terrorism Law, which states that anyone who assists the activities of a terrorist organization could face imprisonment of up to five years and anyone who displays sympathy toward a terrorist group is liable to three years behind bars.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Friday announced that he signed an executive order outlawing six Palestinian organizations linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group in Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinian NGOs that Israel stamped with the terrorist designation include Addameer, Al Haq, Bisan Center, DCI-P, Samidoun and UAWC.

The move by Israel turned into a public spat between Washington and Jerusalem over whether notice was given to US officials before the announcement was made.

Meanwhile, MKs from the Joint Arab List faction on Tuesday evening met in Ramallah with representatives of the six Palestinian NGOs, expressing support for their work and promising to continue helping them in their fight to overturn Gantz's decision.

They also lambasted Meretz and the Arab Ra'am party as culpable for Gantz's decision, as they are both members of the ruling coalition.

"In the backward world in which the government of occupation calls itself a government of 'change,' the defense minister has the gall to declare human rights organizations with international reputations as terrorist organizations. Meretz and Ra'am need to decide which side they are on – the side of the occupation, annexation, and apartheid, or the side of peace, equality and democracy. This is a precedential and dangerous decision and we will fight it on all levels, including international," the Joint Arab List said in a statement.

MK Sami Abu Shehadeh from the Balad party said: "We met in Ramallah with the six human rights organizations that Gantz claims are terrorist organizations. These are ethical people who have been working for many years on behalf of human rights and justice and against the occupation and its crimes. Will Gantz have the courage to appear at the [International Criminal Court at] The Hague?"

Earlier Tuesday, officials from the Office of the European Union Representative also met with members of the six Palestinian NGOs

Posting through its special "EU and Palestinians" Twitter handle after the meeting, the EU representative's office said it took the matter seriously and asked Israel for an explanation as to why it decided to outlaw the groups..

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A new report by pro-Israel NGO Im Tirtzu reveals that over the last five years, UN. encies have funneled at least $40 million to radical anti-Israel groups, some with terror ties. It also offers a prescription: a Taylor Force Act applied to the United Nations.

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Passed by Congress in 2018, the Taylor Force Act, named after a US war veteran and graduate student killed by a terrorist while visiting Israel, conditions US aid to the Palestinian Authority on its halting payments to terrorists. The PA puts such a high premium on these payments that its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said in July 2018: "If we are left with one penny, we will spend it on the families of the prisoners and martyrs."

The law led the Trump administration to cut more than $200 million to the PA.

Eytan Meir, Im Tirtzu's director of external relations and development, tells JNS that a US law holding the UN accountable for funding malevolent NGOs will lead the United Nations to become more transparent and take greater care in its review of its "implementing partners," the UN's term of art for organizations to which it channels funds to carry out in-country projects.

The United States is the largest financial supporter of the United Nations, providing 22% of its financial support (China is a distant second with 12%). "Americans should know what their money is going toward. I think it would shock most Americans to learn that their tax dollars are going to terror-linked organizations," said Meir.

Ties to terrorism and the BDS movement

Anne Herzberg, legal adviser of NGO Monitor, said a UN Taylor Force Act is a "good idea."

"We've also suggested it in our reports that money to the UN should be blocked if it's going to be used for terror-linked partners," she tells JNS.

More than a third of the Palestinian groups (eight of 19) identified in the report, titled The United Nations' Funding of Radical Anti-Israel Organizations, have ties to terrorism. Virtually all of them support the BDS movement that calls for boycotts against Israel.

Meir notes that in July 2019, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution against BDS (398-17) with numerous US states passing their own anti-BDS laws. "It's the general consensus that BDS is not something that America supports. But then you have all this money going towards BDS."

To identify the nature of the NGOs receiving money, the report relied on work by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy, whose February 2019 report Terrorists in Suits detailed the links between terror groups and anti-Israel NGOs. The ministry told JNS that it has brought attention to "the UN's financial support of Palestinian NGOs with ties to internationally designated terror organizations throughout the years. … The Ministry calls on the UN to cease any and all support it still provides to Palestinian 'human rights' NGOs which instead of protecting human life, seek to end it through their continued ties to terror groups."

Most of the NGOs on the list sound innocuous, like the Agriculture Development Association, Women's Affairs Center and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Yet all have been linked to promoting BDS. The last has ties to two terror groups, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). These three NGOs alone collected more than $5 million from UN agencies between 2016 and 2020.

"They all have nice names, but then you look into what they do. One of these groups is an environmental group; you think, 'Great, they want to improve the environmental situation in Gaza.' Then you go on their website and see their videos, and they're all dedicated to attacking Israel, to accusing Israel of everything under the sun, and that's essentially what all these groups are doing," said Meir.

Herzberg noted that the groups listed in the report support a one-state solution – that is, "Palestine" in place of Israel, meaning the United Nations is channeling money to groups that contradict its own position. "The UN framework is two states for two peoples, and I don't think any of those groups support that."

The United Nations channels funds to the NGOs primarily via three agencies: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund).

The agencies are not always transparent about where they're sending the money they receive from donors, stated Meir, noting that OCHA is "the worst in documenting where things are going." The report includes a screenshot of a 2018 OCHA grant. Under "implementing partners" it lists "N/A" (not available). In some cases, OCHA listed the implementing partners but not how much money each received.

JNS reached out to all three agencies for comment but received no reply.

'The bigger issue is the Europeans'

Herzberg said it's important to point out that the UN agencies are not supplying the money. The UN agencies act more as a "clearinghouse," directing money from a donor to an ostensibly humanitarian project within the region. Sometimes, the money comes from a country, like Canada or the European Union, "which I think is really important because the funders are the people who need to be held accountable."

In most cases, UN agencies aren't picking the projects either, said Herzberg. They rely on a group called the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), described by OCHA as a "forum of humanitarian organizations operating in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt)." The HCT is comprised of UN agency heads and two NGO umbrella groups, one of which is the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO). PNGO refused to sign an anti-terror clause, which is a condition of U.S. government funding. In 2007, PNGO launched a boycott against USAID when the group introduced updated anti-terrorism procedures. Nine of the 19 groups listed in the Im Tirtzu report are members of PNGO.

OCHA's website description of PNGO is at odds with reality: "The Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) seeks to support, consolidate and strengthen Palestinian civil society on the basis of the principles of democracy, social justice and sustainable development."

The Palestinians are basically the ones choosing the projects, says Herzberg, and they have no trouble working with terrorists. "Almost all the so-called human-rights NGOs – they're part of the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine]. I think it was in the 1990s a deliberate strategy by the PFLP to set up these NGOs as a good way to do propaganda and perhaps also to funnel money to themselves."

Herzberg noted that the role of the United Nations is important because it gives the donor governments some plausible deniability: "Oh, it's a UN project" is a response to deflect criticism.

With the UN funding process ripe for reform, the question is whether the Biden administration will be open to a Taylor Force Act, particularly as it has rebooted funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the biggest source of humanitarian aid for the Palestinians and one that has been widely criticized for corruption.

Meir said it's unlikely, though Herzberg is more optimistic. "With UNRWA, they've wanted to increase the oversight. [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken made a speech about that not too long ago. And certainly, it's an issue for members of Congress. So I do think they'd be amenable to it."

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"The bigger issue is the Europeans. You could have US legislation, but a lot of the money comes from Europe and from individual European governments," said Herzberg. Even in Europe, which is so "wedded" to the idea of NGOS that "they don't even look at the outcome or the product of what they're funding," progress can be made through "naming and shaming," she added.

"When you actually expose how the money is being used to the parliaments back in Europe, people are usually pretty shocked," she said. "They just had no idea their money was going to those types of programs or counterproductive initiatives, and oftentimes, they've been very embarrassed because many of the groups have ties to terror groups."

Following such exposure, she continued, "generally, they start taking a closer examination, and that's a good way to end the funding."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Defense Minister Benny Gantz has issued instructions for Israel to resume shipments of humanitarian goods into the Gaza Strip for the first time since Operation Guardian of the Walls ended in an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that took effect at 2 a.m. on Friday.

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The supplies, to be sent through the Kerem Shalom crossing starting Tuesday morning and in coordination with political officials, will include medical equipment, food, medicine, and fuel for private use.

As of late Monday, no exports would be allowed out of Gaza into Israel.

Also starting Tuesday, the Erez crossing was slated to open to allow Gazans requiring lifesaving medical treatment, international NGO workers, and foreign journalists to move back and forth between Gaza and Israel.

The government also decided to allow fishing off the coast of Gaza up to a distance of six nautical miles starting at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

Israeli officials stressed that the decisions were conditional on continued calm and stability from Gaza. Earlier Monday, a high-ranking official in the US State Department said the US would ensure that the goods transferred to Gaza were used to rebuild the region and did not fall into the hands of Hamas.

In a phone conversation, the official said that the US would use UN personnel "already on the ground in Gaza" to distribute humanitarian aid donated by foreign nations, "in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority."

The official said he believed that Egypt would also play a part in distributing the humanitarian donations.

The US representative did not have a coherent answer about how, exactly, Hamas could be prevented from hijacking the supplies earmarked for the civilian population, as the organization has total control over the Gaza Strip and what occurs there.

"Everything has been done to ensure that the aid goes to the people of Gaza who need it more than anyone," he said, nevertheless adding that there were "no guarantees."

The US officials said that Hamas had "veto power," but that the US believed that cooperation with UN personnel would "make things happen."

"We aren't talking with Hamas," the official said.

Simcha Goldin, father of the late Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014 and whose body has been held by Hamas – along with that of the late Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul and Israeli captives Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed – since then, attacked the government's decision.

"The Israeli leadership has simply lost its moral compass and its ability to distinguish between good and evil. They send supplies to a terrorist organization while it is brutalizing the citizens of Israel and keeping IDF soldiers who set out to fight for and defend their homeland. This is a total loss of values."

Goldin called on Gantz and IDF Chief Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi to "wake up immediately and recalculate. The people of Israel won't this abandonment pass quietly. Bring the soldiers back to Israel immediately."

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Morashtenu, also known as Our Heritage – The Charter for Democracy, has received almost 500,000 euros (about 552,000 dollars) from Brussels as part of a three-year grant starting in April 2018.

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According to the Delegation of the European Union to Israel's website, the grant, which totals 498,461 euros, was part of the overall effort of the 27-member bloc to influence the attitude toward the peace process under the overall theme "Promoting the settlement of the conflict and changing public opinion among Russian-speaking Israelis."

The site further explains that the overarching goal of the grant is "to promote conditions for a negotiated settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and potential shifts in public opinion among the Russian-speaking community by building confidence and trust in the two-state solution among a population that has traditionally rejected and been omitted from the process, as well as to deconstruct a negative view of the Palestinian narrative."

According to the Israeli registry of NGOs, Morashtenu's offices have the same address as that of the Geneva Initiative, a group that is promoting the unofficial accord struck between Israelis and Palestinians some 15 years ago.

Olga Deutsch, the vice president at NGO Monitor that publishes "fact-based research and independent analysis about non-governmental organizations, their funders, and other stakeholders, primarily in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict," said the EU should not actively take part in the political debate in Israel.

"As one of Israel's strategic partners, the EU should be aware of the sensitivities surrounding the effort to change people's political views in Israel, especially during the charged atmosphere of an election campaign," she said. "The European effort to redraw the political map in Israel based on social stereotypical characterizations in Israel undermines the social fabric in Israel and the EU's image among the Israeli public."

The EU responded with the following statement: "A thriving and open civil society has always been the basis for shared democratic values that are the foundation of the relations between Israel and the European Union. The EU supports programs as part of its peace-building initiative that is aimed at promoting peace and the two-state solution. The EU does not fund, either directly or indirectly, activities that are directed against political parties or to their benefit. NGOs in Israel get EU funding based on the prioritization of initiatives, not based on their political persuasions."

Morashtenu also provided a statement reading the following: "Promoting peace is Israel's top priority. With both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz visiting the United States to learn about the administration's peace plan, no one can argue that there is improper interference by a foreign country in Israel. Of course, Morashtenu does not engage in political activity."

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A directive issued this week informs the manicure-conscious that in addition to the currently permitted pearl white, light pink, and French manicures (white nail tips), female officers and NCOs will be allowed to sport polish in shades of light purple, light brown, light gray, classic red, and burgundy while in uniform.

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The directive stressed that neon nail polish and sparkly nails are still prohibited, and that all a woman's fingernails must be painted the same color.

"One color of nail polish must be used, and each nail must be completely painted, and not include nail decorations," the directive reads.

Brig. Gen. Michel Yanko, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate, said the military had decided to change its nail polish policy after repeated request from female officers.

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