The anti-Israel protests that exploded across the UK after October 7 have been organized by a globally connected and financed network of NGOs aimed at promoting IRGC propaganda, Islamist and anti-Western narratives, and Israel eliminationism, NGO Monitor revealed in a new 129-page report, presented in the UK’s House of Lords on Wednesday.
NGO Monitor aimed to lift the veil on the notion that the protests are grassroots, revealing them instead to be part of a well-coordinated effort by NGOs, special interests, and foreign agents to create false perceptions of anti-Israel attitudes and therefore sway global policy.
The report revealed that 80% of the UK's protests were orchestrated by NGOs, with many circumventing UK transparency laws by raising funding via US-based charitable vehicles.
The report also found that at least 11 of the 40 major post-October 7th protests and mobilization campaigns in the UK have links to extremist organizations and/or have officials who have met with or cooperated with extremist actors, including the Iranian regime and its Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hamas, Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Examples of NGOs with terror links are Friends of Al Aqsa, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and the Muslim Association of Britain.
Terror-linked organizations funded by UK government
Nineteen of these organizations get UK government funding either via the FCDO or by Gift Aid. At least 11 are receiving taxpayer funding from countries such as the United States, Belgium, the European Commission, Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
According to the report, at least two organizations, CAGE and Palestine Action, are raising funding via cryptocurrency.
A lot of the mobilization efforts of NGOs are directed at youth. For example, Amnesty UK runs a training course (Rise Up) for 16-24-year-olds on how to engage in disruptive protests, specifically focused on Israel. The fully funded training course "helps young people develop their campaigning skills… [regarding] the Occupied Palestinian Territory [the programme.]"’
Amnesty International UK has a total income of about £24.1 million, and receives funding from local entities.
House of Lords hears evidence protests are not grassroots
NGO Monitor’s legal advisor Anne Herzberg presented the findings at the UK’s House of Lords, at the invitation of Lord Walney, who moderated a conversation between Herzberg and barrister Jonathan Hall KC. Lord Michael Gove contributed the report’s afterword.
“The anti-Israel protests that exploded across the Western world on October 7 are presented as grassroots appeals for Palestinian human rights," said Herzberg.
"In reality, and as our new report documents, they are organized by a globally connected and financed network of NGOs aimed at promoting IRGC propaganda, Islamist and anti-Western narratives, and Israel eliminationism."
"Many of these groups are overtly linked to Hamas and other terrorist actors. It is time to see these demonstrations as a significant destabilizing threat and for governments to investigate these networks.”
“I have argued before that it cannot be right for organizations to enjoy the full privileges of charity while under serious investigation for links to extremism, and that our regulators are too often too slow and too weak to act," said Walney. "The evidence assembled here only sharpens that case.”