Last year, for several months, there were exchanges between German officials and Kurve Wustrow. The German humanitarian organization is making a desperate attempt to salvage its ongoing projects with Zochrot and New Profile, two Israeli human rights organizations focused on antimilitarization and Palestinian rights.
The organization made telephone calls and held non -public meetings with officials. They sent emails answering questions. They even sent communications from Israeli organizations explaining their positions.
But nothing was checked to dissuade the German government from cutting off any official public investment by the organization. In mid-December, the resolution was confirmed. This futile struggle left Kurve Wustrow’s acting director, John Preuss, feeling “tired and frustrated. “
Kurve Wustrow has partners in several countries, adding Sudan and Myanmar. But, Preuss said, it’s the first time the German government has funded one of its existing projects.
Preuss, who for days collapsed over the resolve to speak publicly, and his Israeli associates had to guess what they were even to protect themselves.
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.
The DW Research Unit examined emails and classified documents and spoke with dozens of resources from the progression sector in Germany, Israel and the occupied West Bank. The effects imply that Zochrot’s financing and its subsequent profile is a broader plan of relief of the federal budget for human rights organizations that have criticized the policies of the Israeli government and the war existing in Gaza.
Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, Germany has also stopped funding at least six Palestinian organizations. The resources with which DW has maintained agreed that this resolution is political, an attempt to silence critical votes in a context of reduced space for civil society in Israel. They also said that the German resolution had been adopted under Israeli pressure.
In a statement to DW, the German Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation as “inaccurate,” saying it continues to fund “many NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian territories that criticize Israeli professional 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.
The German investment relief put an end to ongoing projects that teams had approved at the end of 2023.
Zochrot, which means “to remember” in Hebrew, advocates responsibility for the Nakba, a term many use to refer to the expulsion and displacement of Palestinians before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The organization also campaigns for the right of return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, which the current Israeli government strongly opposes.
Its director, Rachel Beitarie, told DW that she met with German officials before finishing the work. “The German past, the Nazi regime, was mentioned again and again in those conversations,” he said. German officials added, they told him that it was vital for Germany for Israel due to the history of Germany.
That is why Zochrot wrote A to the German government, in which he addressed the query of whether he called the query “Israel’s lifestyles”, stating that this was categorically the case.
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 communication to the German government, a new profile explained that their treatment with those who refuse to serve in the Israel Army were “strictly according to 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.
The two organizations had been receiving progression support from various German partners for about two decades. Until now, the appeals told DW, his paintings had never caused fear among the German authorities.
Sources believe pressure from the Israeli government may have led to the German authorities’ decision to defund them and other groups.
Germany is reviewing the coverage of the federal budget for progression cooperation and humanitarian aid, namely in regions mired in armed clash and political unrest. But when it comes to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the complexity is even greater.
The German parliament approved a solution in November, drafting closed doors, linking public subsidies with adherence to a debatable definition of anti-Semitism. Critics say the solution conflates any Israeli government complaint as anti-Semitic, as it lists general terms such as “making comparisons between new Israeli policies and those of the Nazis” or “claiming that the lifestyles of a state of Israel are a racist attitude. ” effort” as examples of anti-Semitism.
This materializes in what the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development called in a December 2023 statement a “careful review” of spouses in the region, a procedure that ensures that Germany’s partner organizations do not have ties to terrorist groups or make anti-Semitic comments. statements or movements that make them “undesirable”. This means that organizations do not deserve to participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, incite violence against Israel, or deny Israel’s right to exist.
Dozens of resources from civil society organizations told DW that the German government has increasing Taking 254 hostages. The government unleashed attacks first against Gaza and then against Lebanon. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have died in the Israeli offensive, according to local authorities.
The humanitarian organization has developed a list of at least 15 organizations, including Zochrot and New Profile, which have lost the German government investment in recent months. Most are Palestinians and many have long -standing associations with German progressive organizations.
Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not been able to verify that 15 of them had been cut, DW has been able to verify that at least 8 teams have recently been withdrawn.
Many NGO resources agree that one resolution is, namely, symptomatic of Germany’s restrictive stance: Berlin’s resolution to quietly reduce investment to six Palestinian organizations after Hamas attacks surpassed by Hamas 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, became important in 2014 for having contributed testimonies contrary to Israel before the International Criminal Court, which, in November 2024, published an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu, who raised accusations of crimes war and crimes contrary to humanity. Many civil society resources said that probably due to this 2014 testimony, al-haq had entered the list of Israel terrorists.
The Israeli government resolution to designate the six Palestinian NGOs as terrorists in 2021 a political resolution, “100%,” the European Union representative in the West Bank and Gaza, 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 have reached a similar conclusion. They wrote in a set in July 2022 that “Israel’s substantive data have not been won that guarantee to review our policy towards the six Palestinian NGOs. ” One of the signatories was Germany.
The investment continued, but in December 2023, the German government discreetly carried out a total policy change and ruled out any federal investment. There are few days left for Christmas, said a source, while most of the humanitarian staff was already on vacation.
DW has a copy of an internal, classified report from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, which states that no new cooperation with the six agencies is allowed. Here, too, there is no explanation as to why it happened. The resolution has never yet been publicly communicated.
When asked what this sudden change had motivated, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to DW in a letter that the Government had read and continues to read about any data related to the six NGOs.
Overall, the investment by 8 Israeli and Palestinian organizations seems to imply Germany’s resolve to agree with the current Israeli government on a progression of resources.
This comes at a time when civil society and critical media in Israel are shrinking, said Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard, who defends and advises Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, adding that Al-Haq believes restricting investment to human rights organizations is part of a planned strategy through the Israeli government to suppress 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 answered questions about the broader crackdown on civil society in Israel.
The German 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, he asked angrily, “what do the affairs of the German government impose on the ideology of the Israeli government on Israeli citizens?”
What, he added, “is the German government’s business trying to silence dissent?”
In a letter to DW, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected all the accusations of Germany, following the example of Israel of silent voices that criticize the Netanyahu government, describing them as “inaccurate. “
Additional reporting via Tania Krämer in Be’er Sheva and Tel Aviv
Edited by: Mathias Bölinger, Carolyn Thompson, Sarah Hofmann
Fact Check: Carolyn Thompson
Legal Advisor: Florian Wagenknecht