German Holocaust Victim Foundation Revealed to be Supporting Anti-Israel 'Nakba'

A German government-funded organization whose mandate is to support survivors of Nazi labor camps decided to stop funding a group that promotes the idea that Israel’s founding was a “Nakba” or catastrophe and which endorsed the Gaza flotilla, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday.

This decision comes after the Jerusalem Post and the Israeli watchdog group NGO-Monitor revealed a number of anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic activities the German group funded, and accused it of misappropriating funds into programs at odds with its intended mission.

The controversy began this past fall, when Jerusalem Post correspondent Benjamin Weinthal reported that the Remembrance, Responsibility, Future Foundation – known by its German acronym EVZ - was funding the creation of student materials with anti-Semitic images as well as programs for Palestinian and European students comparing Israeli policies to the repressive government of East Germany. Weinthal wrote that EVZ doled out 22,000 euros:

to support a exchange program between the Gerhart-Hauptmann high school and an exclusive Israeli-Arab high school in Nazareth.

Students and educators from the two schools wrote a brochure equating Israel with the defunct East German Stalinist state, and including crude drawings of Orthodox Jewish students. The document depicted Israel as a violent state with an education system that excludes and oppresses Arab pupils.

Critics in Israel and Germany say the brochure seeks to delegitimize Israel’s existence and stokes modern anti-Semitism.

According to its website, EVZ was founded with a 5.2 billion euro investment from the German government and industry. Among its mandates: to help former slave laborers of the Nazi era, to combat anti-Semitism and to promote human rights through educational programs.

Among the groups it was funding: Zochrot, an Israeli NGO whose website includes articles equating Israeli policies with “apartheid” and like many Palestinians calls the 1948 founding of the Jewish state a catastrophe. Zochrot also endorsed the “Free Gaza Flotilla.”

Three months after receiving complaints about its grantee choices, EVZ decided to stop funding Zochrot, according to Ha’aretz:

"EVZ supports educational projects but does not support organizations that also have a political agenda," one of the German foundation's directors, Gunter Saathoff, told Haaretz. "Since Zochrot supports the right of return, the foundation cannot extend its cooperation with it." […]

Several months after promising 25,000 euros for an educational project dealing with the Nakba - the Palestinian term for the catastrophe that happened to them in 1948 - EVZ summoned new Zochrot director Liat Rosenberg to Berlin. "They requested we refrain from mentioning EVZ in our publications dealing with the project," said Rozenberg. After the meeting with Rosenberg, Bohme wrote a memo stating that "EVZ appreciates Zochrot's agreement not to make EVZ's support public."

The Blaze reached out via e-mail to EVZ, which did not respond.

After learning EVZ would stop funding Zochrot, Gerald Steinberg of the independent Jerusalem-based research institution NGO-Monitor said:

This is a significant victory in the battle to hold funders accountable for their support of NGOs involved in demonization. Zochrot, a radical Israeli NGO, supports the Palestinian claim to a “Right of Return” – which has no legal basis and would end the existence of Israel as the Jewish nation-state – endorsed the violent “Free Gaza Flotilla, and falsely accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “forcible displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people.”

EVZ’s decision is recognition that such immoral funding is entirely opposed to its declared mission of compensating slave laborers of the Nazi regime. The hate-filled attacks against Israel, which were enabled by EVZ funding, also make a two-state solution based on coexistence more difficult.

Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton irked Israeli government ministers when she complained about a debate in the Knesset over possibly restricting foreign governments’ funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Israel. While hiding behind the title “NGO,” many of these organizations, like Zochrot, are highly political and have enormous sway over the international image of Israel. Though the legislation has been put on hold, the debate over EVZ’s funding choices sheds light on Israel’s sensitivity to the NGOs.