Israel Law Center Threatens To Sue Oxfam Over Terrorist Connections

The Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin) has threatened to sue Oxfam International over alleged connections with terrorist organizations, The Jerusalem Post reports.

In a letter sent to Oxfam on Thursday, the Israeli NGO accused the global anti-poverty group of “providing financial aid and additional forms of material support to the Union of Health Workers Committees (UHWC) and the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC), instrumentalities of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority.”

The letter notes further that “Oxfam readily acknowledges it works very closely with these two Palestinian groups and provides them financial support.”

Citing section 219 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and other legal provisions, the letter says that the PFLP is officially designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Accordingly, financial assistance to it is illegal. A 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, found that “any assistance or support to designated terrorist groups, include putatively benign forms of assistance (such as agricultural aid) is criminal.”

Oxfam garnered wide media attention in recent weeks due to its criticism of the Israeli firm SodaStream, which operates a factory over the Green Line.

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the February 21st, 2014 edition of Hamodia.