Amazon.com Widgets

Monday, May 10, 2010

JPost: 'Ameer Makhoul, Omar Abdo nabbed for spying for Hizbullah'

A leading Arab Israeli political activist and a second man were arrested in recent weeks by the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency] on suspicion of spying for Hizbullah and conspiring with enemy agents, the Israel Police revealed on Monday.

The two suspects have been named as Ameer Makhoul, 42, head of Ittijah (the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations) - an umbrella group for Arab NGOs in Israel - of Haifa, and Omar Said Abdo, 40, of Kfar Kana, an activist for the Balad Arab political party.

Makhoul was arrested on May 6 and Abdo was taken into custody on April 24, security services said.

"They were arrested on suspicion of severe security offenses," police added. "The investigation, which is ongoing, is being coordinated with the attorney general [Yehuda Weinstein] and the Israel Police's Head of Investigations Branch, Cmdr. Yoav Seglovitch, as well as the state prosecution," police said...

NGO Monitor has a good backgrounder on Ittijah, the group Makhoul heads.

  • Website: www.ittijah.org 
  • Established in 1985 and based in Haifa. Ittijah describes itself as "the network for Palestinian non-governmental organizations in Israel Ittijah strives to strengthen and empower the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel by promoting the development of Palestinian civil society and advocating for political, economic and social change. Its mission is to coordinate the activities and strategies of member organizations while fostering the development of members' institutional and organizational capabilities." 
  • Member organizations include Adalah, Galilee Society, Mada al-Carmel, I'lam Center, Al-Ahali, and Al-Anwar.
  • Ittijah holds ECOSOC special consultative status in the UN.
  • On May 6, 2010, Ittijah's head Amir Makhoul was arrested for allegedly spying on behalf of Hezbollah.  
  • Updated funding information is not available due to lack of transparency. 
  • Ittijah joined a number of Palestinian NGOs in rejecting anti-terror clauses in funding agreements, specifically from USAID and the Ford Foundation. 
  • During the Gaza war, Ittijah claimed that "the IDF is turning Gaza to kind of an extermination camp, in the full sense of the word and with the full historical relativity" (email)...[More.]

Someone needs to count the New Israel Fund grantees under the Ittijah umbrella.

Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Israeli Arabs Indicted As Hizballah Spies -- NGO Connection with New Israel Fund.

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/17926

[The following is a guest post by Zvi Koenigsberg.] On April 13th, I posted an entry on Solomonia decrying the fact that Congregation Kehillath Israel (KI) had just hired a very left-leaning, agenda-driven, assistant rabbi. I used very strong terminolo... Read More

1 Comment

Ittijah is one of the "Palestinian civil society" proponents of BDS.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Search


Archives
[an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]