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Last update - 00:00 26/10/2007
Report: Dutch gov't funding anti-Israeli organization
By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel, Dutch, Anti-Semitism 

The Dutch government is funding an anti-Israeli organization whose speakers advocate Iran's right to posses nuclear weapons, a Hague-based pro-Zionist lobby group stated Thursday in a report that it sent to the Netherlands foreign ministry.

The scathing report that the Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) prepared of United Civilians for Peace (UCP) was written by Yonatan Bar-On, a Dutch-born historian from the Haifa area.

After reading the report, parliament member Hans van Baalen from the second largest opposition party, the VVD, reportedly wrote Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen a letter demanding the government cease funding for the organization. According to Bar-On's report, the government gives UCP 500,000 euros annually.
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"UCP is one-sided and biased," Bar-On told Haaretz. "By saying that the Netherlands should engage in dialogue 'with all parties,' it is calling for speaking to Hamas, which runs contrary to the Hague's foreign policy. And that would have been fine, if it weren't for the fact that the Dutch government is paying for this group's actions." Bar-On said UCP had confirmed to him that it receives half a million euros per annum from the government.

UCP declined to comment on the report when contacted by Haaretz. However, a spokesperson from the organization was quoted as rejecting the allegations on Dutch media. "We are concerned with human rights in Palestine, and we have addressed the situation of human rights in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as well. As for the references for Iran, they are not correct and in any case as a human rights group we are not concerned with Iranian weaponry."

In his report, Bar-On's quotes UCP spokesman Lambrecht Wessels as defending Iran's nuclear policies. "He wrote that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is one of the threats that drive Iran to those policies," Bar-On says.

The research also notes several occasions in which UCP sponsored people who advocated violence toward Israel and compared Israel to the Nazi occupation. "There are other organizations that are working for peace in a balanced manner. They deserve these funds," Bar-On concludes
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  1.   HOLLAND IS PART OF: WWW.EUROSTAN.EU 04:25  |  A.Louknee 26/10/07
  2.   UCP sounds like a fine organization 04:34  |  dana 26/10/07
  3.   +1 to the Dutch 05:11  |  Paul 26/10/07
  4.   Anti-Semetic government 05:16  |  Gordon 26/10/07
  5.   Loosing friends..... 08:05  |  Esther 26/10/07
  6.   UCP 08:09  |  Sarah 26/10/07
  7.   Utter nonsense from someone with an axe to grind 08:23  |  Natallie Durson 26/10/07
  8.   Report: Dutch digging their own grave 08:34  |  Katie 26/10/07
  9.   Israel can count on much anti if it continues the occupation 08:36  |  lapis 26/10/07
  10.   LOTS&lots of Moslems in Holland.,let Van Gogh be a lesson 08:51  |  PETER SM 26/10/07
  11.   CIDI - self-appointed windmill fighters 18:28  |  Beate Zilversmidt 26/10/07
  12.   ZIONIST TACTICS AND INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD IS DISGUSTING 20:07  |  JACKAL 26/10/07
  13.   Loosing friends 03:22  |  Bela Kuhn 24/01/09
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