Germany defunds 2 Israeli human rights groups
Naomi Conrad | Birgitta Schülke

The German government has quietly cut funding for Zochrot and New Profile, following an earlier defunding of Palestinian NGOs. Some observers fear the move will shrink space for those critical of the Israeli government.

Over the course of several months last year, there was a back-and-forth between German officials and Kurve Wustrow. The German aid organization was staging a desperate attempt to save its ongoing projects with Zochrot and New Profile, two Israeli human rights organizations focused on anti-militarization and Palestinian rights.

The organization made phone calls and held personal meetings with officials. They sent emails responding to questions. They even sent statements from the Israeli organizations explaining their positions.

But nothing managed to dissuade the German authorities from cutting all official government funding for the organization. In mid-December, the decision was confirmed. The futile struggle left Kurve Wustrow's acting director, John Preuss, feeling "tired and frustrated. "

Kurve Wustrow has partners in several countries, including Sudan and Myanmar. But, Preuss said, this was the first time ever the German government had defunded any of their ongoing projects.

Preuss, who for days agonized over the decision of whether to speak up publicly, and his Israeli partners had to second-guess what exactly they were even attempting to defend themselves against.

The German authorities never gave the organization an official explanation as to why they had suddenly decided to rescind the funding for projects they had approved or renewed just the year before.

DW's investigative unit has reviewed emails and classified documents, and spoken with dozens of sources from the development sector in Germany, Israel and the occupied West Bank. The findings indicate that the defunding of Zochrot and New Profile are part of a larger pattern of cutting federal funds for human rights organizations that have been critical of the Israeli government's policies and the ongoing war in Gaza.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, Germany has also stopped funding at least six Palestinian organizations. The sources DW spoke with all agreed that the move was political, an attempt to silence critical voices amid shrinking space for civil society in Israel. They also claimed Germany's decision was taken under Israeli pressure.

In a statement to DW, Germany's Foreign Affairs Ministry rejected this allegation as "inaccurate," saying it continues to fund "numerous NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian territories critical of the Israeli occupation policy."

The work carried out by New Profile and Zochrot is contentious in Israel, particularly under a government that is politically further to the right than any other in the country's history.

Germany's funding cut terminated ongoing projects the groups had cleared in late 2023.

Zochrot, which means "Remembering" in Hebrew, advocates for accountability of the Nakba, a term many use to refer to the expulsion and displacement of Palestinians before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The organization also campaigns for the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, to which the current Israeli government is strongly opposed.

Its director, Rachel Beitarie, told DW that she met with German officials before the defunding was made final. "The German past, the Nazi regime was brought up again and again in these conversations," she said. German officials, she added, told her it was important for Germany to support Israel because of Germany's history.

That's why Zochrot wrote a statement to the German government, in which it addressed the issue of whether it questioned "the existence of Israel," saying it categorically did not.

Beitarie said Zochrot lost about €100,000 (roughly $103,000) — about a quarter of its budget. The defunding "definitely hurts us, but it will not stop us from doing this work," she said.

New Profile, a volunteer-based movement, offers support to conscientious objectors who risk imprisonment in Israel, where military service is mandatory both for men and women. The organization said it has lost about half of its total funding.

In a long statement to the German government, New Profile explained that its work with those refusing to serve in Israel's army was "strictly in accordance with Israeli law."

Sergeiy Sandler, the organization's treasurer, said the defunding was timed "to deliver the most possible damage to our work." It left the organization scrambling to find alternative funding at a time when Israeli soldiers were being sent to fight in Gaza and, until recently, Lebanon.

Both organizations had been receiving development aid through various German partners for roughly two decades. Until now, sources told DW, their work had seemingly never raised concerns among German authorities.

Beitarie, Zochrot's director, believes "pressure from the Israeli government" likely led to the German authorities' decision to defund them and other groups.

It's standard procedure for Germany to regularly review the safeguard of federal funds destined for development cooperation and humanitarian aid, especially in regions immersed in armed conflict and political turmoil. But when it comes to Israel and the Palestinian territories, there's an added layer of complexity.

The German parliament passed a resolution in November which had been drawn up behind firmly closed doors, linking public grants on adherence to a controversial definition of antisemitism. Its critics see the resolution as conflating any criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitic, as it lists broad terms such as "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" or "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor" as examples of antisemitism.

This comes to practice in what the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in a December 2023 statement called a "close scrutiny" of partners in the region, a procedure that ensures Germany's partner organizations don't have links to terror groups, nor make antisemitic statements or actions that make it "undesirable" to support them. This means organizations shouldn't support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, incite to violence against Israel or deny Israel's right to exist.

Dozens of sources from civil society organizations told DW that the German government has become ever more restrictive when it comes to funding since October 7, 2023 when Hamas and other Palestinian militants launched a series of brutal attacks, killing some 1,200 Israelis and taking 254 hostage. In response, the Israeli government has unleashed attacks on first Gaza and then Lebanon. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to the local authorities.

Aid workers have compiled a list of at least 15 organizations, including Zochrot and New Profile, that have lost their German government funding in recent months. Most are Palestinian, and many had long-standing partnerships with German development organizations.

While the Foreign Ministry did not confirm that 15 had been defunded, DW was able to verify at least eight groups whose funds were recently cut.

One decision, many NGO sources agreed, is particularly symptomatic of Germany's increasingly restrictive stance: the move by Berlin to quietly cut funding to six Palestinian organizations after the Hamas attacks in late 2023.

Israel had deemed them connected with terrorists already back in 2021, even though many countries, including France and originally Germany, said those claims were baseless.

One of the organizations, Al-Haq, gained prominence in 2014 for providing testimony against Israel to the International Criminal Court, which in November 2024 issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Many civil society sources said it was likely due to this 2014 testimony that Al-Haq made Israel's terror list.

The 2021 move by the Israeli government to designate the six Palestinian NGOs as terrorists was a political one, "100%," the European Union representative to the West Bank and Gaza at the time, Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, told DW.

"None of the audits and financial controls came to the conclusion that any of these six NGOs have contravened or violated our financing agreements or contractual obligations," he said.

Nine European foreign ministries reached a similar conclusion. They wrote in a joint statement in July 2022 that "no substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy towards the six Palestinian NGOs." One of the signatories was Germany.

The funding continued but then, in December 2023, the German government quietly performed a complete policy reversal and terminated all federal funding. It was a few days before Christmas, one source explained, when most aid workers were already on holiday.

DW has a copy of an internal, classified report by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, which states that no new cooperation with the six agencies were to be authorized. Here, too, no reasons were given. The decision has still never been publicly communicated.

When asked what prompted the sudden shift, a Foreign Office spokesperson told DW in a written statement that the government reviewed and continues to review any information concerning the six NGOs.

Taken together, the defunding of eight Israeli and Palestinian organizations seems to indicate Germany's decision to side with the current Israeli government, sources in the development sector agreed.

It comes at a time when the space for critical civil society and media in Israel is shrinking, said Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard, who defends and advises Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, including Al-Haq. He believes that restricting funding for human rights organizations is part of a deliberate strategy of the Israeli government to stifle dissent.

"It's a trend that began a decade and a half ago, but came to its peak with the current government, and especially after October 7," he said. It was, he explained, "unbelievable how difficult it is in today's Israel to criticize the policy of the government."

The Israeli Embassy in Berlin did not respond to questions about the wider crackdown on civil society in Israel.

The German government "is participating in oppression," said Beitarie, director of Zochrot.

Sergeiy Sandler from New Profile agreed. He lives in Be'er Sheva, a town in southern Israel sandwiched between two military airports. The soundtrack of the war in Gaza, which is taking place a mere 40 kilometers (25 miles) from his house, is the incessant roar of planes heading to or returning from the Gaza Strip.

It's a constant reminder that the war is so close to his home. "And [New Profile's] work at least helps some people not take direct part in the atrocities," he said, adding that New Profile is getting more and more requests from people wanting to abstain from military service.

"I can understand why the Israeli government wants to suppress us," he said.

But what, he asked, angrily, "is the German government's business imposing the ideological demands of the Israeli government on Israeli citizens?"

What, he added, "is the German government's business trying to silence dissent?"

In a written statement to DW, the Foreign Office rejected all accusations of Germany following Israel's lead to silence voices critical of Netanyahu's government as "inaccurate."

Additional reporting by Tania Krämer in Be'er Sheva and Tel Aviv

Edited by: Mathias Bölinger, Carolyn Thompson, Sarah Hofmann

Fact-checking: Carolyn Thompson

Legal advice: Florian Wagenknecht

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-defunds-2-israeli-human-rights-groups/a-71217628

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