Israeli diplomats have been urging the EU to blacklist NGOs that finance Hamas
Israeli diplomats and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid urged Germany to pull the plug on groups that finance Hamas, prompting Stuttgart’s mayor last week to scrub the municipal website of an alleged pro-Hamas group.
Stuttgart’s mayor, Frank Nopper, had resisted calls from Israeli army Brigadier General (res.) Amir Avivi, head of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, to expunge a post for the allegedly pro-Hamas NGO, Palestine Committee Stuttgart, shortly after Hamas massacred 1,200 people on October 7.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry told i24NEWS recently that “Israel opposes any transfer of funds to Hamas or any other Palestinian terror organization, including through civil society organizations. The Israeli Foreign Ministry is working with different countries around the world to designate Hamas as a terror organization and to prevent any transfer of funds to it.”
Israeli Opposition Leader and head of the Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, visited Berlin in December to urge German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government to crack down on funding for the Hamas terrorist organization. Lapid told the German news organization Die Welt’s TV program that “There are people who perhaps personally support Hamas activists. And they are working to transfer money to Hamas.”
Susanne Kaufmann, a spokeswoman for Stuttgart’s mayor, confirmed to i24NEWS that the city deleted the entry for Palestine Committee Stuttgart on its website. “Based on a careful examination of current developments, the state capital Stuttgart has decided to no longer list the Stuttgart Palestine Committee as a cultural association on the city’s homepage,” said Kaufmann.
When asked if Hamas is a terrorist organization, Kaufmann declined to comment
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean for the Los Angeles-based human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, told i24NEWS, “October 7th wasn’t enough for the mayor of Stuttgart to act? Hamas suicide bombings? Massive missile attacks? Its genocidal anti-Semitic founding document wasn’t enough? Disgusting.”
According to the Israeli activist law firm Shurat Hadin, the Palestine Committee Stuttgart finances two Germany-designated terrorist entities, Hamas and Samidoun. Palestine Committee Stuttgart also supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel. Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, has declared BDS an anti-Semitic movement.
Israel’s embassy in Berlin told i24NEWS prior to the deletion of the alleged pro-Hamas group that “The Israeli Consulate General in Munich proactively collaborates with senior municipality officials, actively utilizing tools to assess and address the issue.”
It is unclear how much — if any — money the Palestine Committee Stuttgart sent to Hamas, Samidoun, and Hamas-affiliated groups. i24NEWS can reveal that the Palestine Committee Stuttgart uses a bank account from the German bank Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW), which is partly owned by the city of Stuttgart and the state of Baden-Württemberg, where Stuttgart is located.
When asked whether Stuttgart will request that the LBBW terminate the Palestine Committee Stuttgart’s bank account, the city’s spokeswoman referred i24NEWS to the LBBW. Bernd Wagner, a spokesman for LBBW, responded to the inquiry that no comment was available at this time.
The Palestine Committee Stuttgart did not immediately respond to an i24NEWS press query.
Israeli lawyer and counter-terrorism expert, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, from Shurat HaDin, told i24NEWS: “It is outrageous that the Stuttgart Palestine Committee, a Hamas front organization, would be allowed by the City of Stuttgart to post its information on its homepage. They are plainly soliciting funds for the Islamic terrorist groups in Gaza and are openly displaying their affiliation with the designated and outlawed Samidoun organization.
She continued, “There are no secrets here — only brazen anti-Israel German officials who never met a Palestinian extremist group they did not sympathize with, want to show love and support to Hamas. And it’s well-understood that Hamas’s financial pipelines have been heavily disrupted. The Gaza terrorists are desperately scrambling everywhere for funds to keep their terror war and rocket attacks on Israel going.”
Darshan-Leitner continued, “Shurat HaDin will be investigating whether allowing the Stuttgart Palestine Committee on its official website would constitute aiding and abetting murderous Hamas, and whether Stuttgart and its elected officials can be sued under anti-terrorism laws. It’s shocking that only 2 months after the brutal murder of a German citizen, Shani Louk, by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, that Stuttgart’s Mayor is so resistant to shutting down this source of funding to her murderers. Shani’s blood calls out from the ground for justice.”
