Did Britain Yank Funds for Charity That Backed Palestinian Rights?
Britain reportedly has halted funding to a charity that sponsored anti-Israel events.
The government’s Department for International Development pulled its funding of the human rights organization War On Want, The Telegraph reported over the weekend. The group helped to pay for last month’s Israeli Apartheid Week throughout the country, the newspaper wrote.
Over the last two years, War on Want has received about $370,000 in government funding, according to the Telegraph.
A source in the Department for International Development said the U.K. “deplored incitement on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the newspaper reported.
The British government has recently banned municipalities and other publicly funded authorities from implementing boycotts of Israel.
The Telegraph reported that it obtained undercover recordings of events where anti-Semitism, demands for the destruction of Israel or naked support for terror were expressed by academics and others in meetings at some of Britain’s most prestigious universities. Some of the events were sponsored by War on Want.
In a statement released Sunday, War on Want called The Telegraph report a “complete fabrication.”
“War on Want has not sought any UK government support for its operations for a number of years now, so it is absurd to suggest that we have had our funding ‘pulled,’” John Hilary, the executive director of War on Want, said in the statement. “The insinuation that we have been criticized by the government for standing up for the rights of the Palestinian people is equally bogus.”
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