Merkel meets Abbas in Berlin, confirms support for Palestinian state

On Thursday, the chancellor reiterated Germany’s support for the “two-state solution” in her meeting with the Palestinian Authority’s president Mahmoud Abbas.

By World Israel News Staff and AP

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that Germany continues to believe a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians is the only way for both peoples “to live in peace and security.”

Merkel stressed her support for a two-state solution ahead of talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Chancellery in Berlin.

“We appreciate Chancellor Merkel’s efforts to create multilateral cooperation aside from unilateral solutions to create stability and peace in the world,” Abbas said.

He stressed the importance of Germany’s role in the Middle East and thanked the country for its financial support for Palestinian organizations.

Germany is one of the biggest donors to the Palestinians having given them some 110 million euros ($121.8 million) in 2018 alone.

During the past several years, government agencies in Germany have come under intense scrutiny in Israel for providing funding to Palestinian organizations linked to terror, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate and extremism

In February, The Jerusalem Post reported that German humanitarian organizations and a Green Party think tank had provided funds to a “Palestinian NGO that employs convicted PFLP terrorists and advocates a boycott of the Jewish state,” quoting a 22-page Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry report titled “The Money Trail: European Union Financing of Organizations Promoting Boycotts against the State of Israel.”

The government report revealed that one of the Palestinian “human rights” organizations supported by German funds, Al-Haq, “is led by a former senior official of the EU-designated terror organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

“Shawan Jabarin, director-general of Al-Haq, served three years in prison for terrorist activities, and currently employs former PFLP activists, who were also incarcerated due to involvement in terror,” the report said.

The United States and Israel have also designated the PFLP a terrorist entity.

In May, a report in the German publication Bild based on “leaked documents containing funding contracts and internal reports” related to the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) “reveal[edl that German taxpayer money is channeled to groups with ties to terror groups, that spread anti-Semitism, and that promote BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel,” announced NGO Monitor in a statement.

GIZ receives 1.9 billion  euros annually in German government funds.

Earlier in August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair, addressed a pro-Israel group in Germany (ICEJ), urging the audience to tell their elected representatives to “stop interfering in Israeli internal affairs” and “stop all funding of NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

Netanyahu told the crowd that the “hundreds of millions of Euros” sent to NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian Authority should be used instead for the needs of “the elderly, sick, and poor in [Germany],” instead of “interfering in the internal affairs of a friendly fellow democracy.”