Egyptian lawyer Azza Soliman was able to count, for around ten years, on the support of Germany: financial support for the activities of the Center for Legal Assistance to Egyptian Women (Cewla) which she founded, political support when she was the victim of repression in Cairo, like other figures of civil society. But this relationship of trust was shattered in the din of the war in Gaza.
In November, Azza Soliman learned that Germany was withdrawing funds intended for a project to support women victims of human trafficking, after she signed, with more than 200 Arab organizations, a text denouncing “the genocide against the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip” and calling for sanctions against Israel, “Occupying and apartheid state”.
The sanction sparked an outcry within Egyptian civil society, which denounced censorship. “Do the German authorities want to discipline us? Teach us what we have the right to say? It’s scandalous ! », storms the lawyer. Contacted by The worldthe German Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicates that it has decided due to the “public statements by the Cewla organization and its founder, incompatible” with the Berlin line, of which “the call for an economic boycott of Israel”.
“Reassessment of political positions”
This decision is part of a broader framework. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, which left 1,140 people dead in Israel, while 240 people were taken hostage, Germany has been screening funded projects ” In the region “. “This review includes a reassessment of the political positions and statements of our partners, with regard to the Hamas terrorist attacks and towards the State of Israel”specifies the ministry in its written response.
In short: Arab human rights defenders risk losing their funding if they do not conform to the political line of this donor on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the unconditional support offered to the Jewish state by Washington and a majority of European leaders arouses indignation in the Arab world. This support is considered even more intolerable in view of the massacre caused by the Israeli offensive in Gaza among civilians: 20,000 dead, two thirds of them women and children, according to local health authorities.
Other European governments want to review their partnerships with civil society organizations in the Middle East. And Palestinian NGOs are under the greatest pressure. At the end of November, the European Union generalized to all new contracts signed with Palestinian actors a clause “anti-incitement” to hatred and violence, which until then only concerned a fraction of the projects financed by Brussels. The beneficiaries of these programs point to a formula that is too vague, likely to be used to force them to mute their work of denouncing the Israeli occupation.
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