The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, is a terrorist organization that has recently made fewer headlines than Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Things were different in the 70s and 80s: the terror group was responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks in Israel, and it worked closely with Western European terrorist cells such as the German Red Army Faction (RAF). The terrorist front was primarily responsible for the hijacking of the German Lufthansa plane “Landshut” in 1977, which had the aim of ransoming the imprisoned heads of the RAF in Germany.
The Palestinian organization, which belongs to the left wing of pan-Arabism, was founded in 1967. Armed struggle has always played a crucial role in the PFLP. It always saw itself as a revolutionary, and therefore militantly fighting, organization. The EU and the US list the PFLP as terrorist organization.
After Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad were able to strengthen their influence and became associated with terror in Israel in recent years, the PFLP has become quiet. In 2019, however, there was a bomb attack in Israel for which the front was held responsible. Shortly before the attack, the terrorist group’s leader, Rina Shnerb, was killed by Israeli security forces. With the attack on Israeli citizens, the PFLP was back in the public eye. According to Israeli intelligence, around 50 PFLP members were arrested in the same year. During interrogations, investigators allegedly became aware of six organizations that had previously been considered part of Palestinian civil society and were considered harmless. They finance their projects in the areas occupied by Israel through private and public donations – including from the European Union and Germany. Israel now classifies these as terrorist organizations. The accusation: They collected donations worldwide under the pretext of human rights in order to finance the PFLP’s terrorist operations.
In the German capital, dealings with the six NGOs led to a serious conflict within the federal government, MENA Research Center has already reported on this. The German Foreign Minister and the Interior Minister have been arguing about funding from the federal government for over a year. Foreign Minister Baerbock is not convinced by the Israelis’ terror classification; just recently, in a parliamentary answer, she reiterated her assessment that the Israelis’ evidence was not sufficient. Her colleague from the Interior Department was surprised at the Foreign Ministry’s position. After all, the Israelis had convinced Minister Faeser of the danger of the six NGOs during several visits to Berlin. The Interior Ministry had repeatedly received information about terrorist activities from Israeli authorities. Hezbollah stored chemicals that can be used to make explosives in a shipping company in southern Germany. Some of the findings from Israel also helped the ministry banning extremist associations in Germany.
The German government has concrete evidence of how tax money from Europe could be misused for terrorist purposes. The costs of these NGOs are said to have been inflated using forged receipts in order to receive higher donations from partners in Europe. At the same time, Israel does not deny that the six organizations carry out humanitarian projects. However, the actual expenditure is said to have been lower. The difference amounts went to terrorist activities – around 50 to 70 percent of the donations.
The dispute within the German government shows how differently people there view the Middle East conflict. The Foreign Office argues that the NGOs that continue to be active despite the ban are important for Palestinian civil society. The Federal Ministry of the Interior does not understand the “reality of the Israeli occupation.” The staff there trust Israeli terror warnings and consider the Foreign Office’s position to be negligent. Minister Faeser’s experts consider the evidence against the six NGOs to be so incriminating that it could stand up in a German court. One cannot simply brush aside the evidence of personal connections between the organizations and the PFLP.
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