Citibank, Arab Bank stop money transfers to Palestine NGO after pressure from Israel lobby

middleeastmonitor.com

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) announced on Tuesday that their group had succeeded in stopping Citibank and the Arab Bank from allowing donations to be transferred to the NGO Defence for Children International Palestine (DCI-P).

UKLFI hailed the move, claiming that DCI-P had some members who were also connected with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a leading member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, considered a terror organisation by Israel.

“UKLFI wrote to Citibank and to Arab Bank in May 2018, highlighting DCI-P’s links to the terrorist groups, and requested that Citibank and Arab Bank withdraw their banking services to DCI-P. Now these banks no longer provide banking services to the terror linked NGO,” UKLFI said in a statement.

DCI-P is an NGO that provides free legal aid for Palestinian children arrested by the occupation and documents Israeli human rights violations in the occupied territories. Established over 20 years ago, the organisation holds consultative status on the United Nations Economic and Social Council, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Council of Europe.

The group is also a long standing member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, a non-violent means of protest against the occupation, which Israel has deemed anti-Semitic, despite the movement’s sole focus on Israel’s human rights violations.

This is not the first time that organisations outside of Israel have withdrawn support from infrastructure projects in the occupied territories, alleging that Palestinian institutions support terrorism.