UK: Jewish charity under scrutiny over donations for Israeli soldiers
The UK’s charity regulator is assessing a complaint against a major Jewish fundraising organisation accused of facilitating donations to an Israeli charity providing equipment to soldiers fighting in Gaza.
The Charity Commission on Wednesday confirmed to Middle East Eye that it had opened a regulatory compliance case into the Achisomoch Aid Company (AAC).
MEE understands that the regulator opened the case in response to a complaint about AAC from a campaign group, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).
London-based AAC is a fundraising platform that facilitates Jewish charitable donations – known in Hebrew as tzedakah – to more than 2,000 vetted charities in the UK, Israel and around the world.
In the last financial year, to March 2023, it handled donations totalling almost £65 million ($85m), according to its latest annual report.
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The complaint highlights the provision of AAC’s fundraising services to an Israeli medical charity, Ezrat Achim, whose current activities include supplying what ICJP describes as “combat and tactical equipment” to Israeli soldiers.
It cites a fundraising page set up by Ezrat Achim on the Israel-based causematch.com website to support “IDF soldiers and families on the frontlines” which said that donations would be used to purchase equipment including drones, protective gear, gunlights and other items “according to specific daily requests we receive from commanders and individual soldiers”.
It notes that the activities of Ezrat Achim, and the services provided to it by AAC, may amount to “complicity in war crimes”, citing serious concerns about Israel’s conduct of its war in Gaza and ongoing legal proceedings against Israel and Israeli officials at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 94,000 injured in Gaza since the start of war last October.
MEE asked both AAC and Ezrat Achim for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
ICJP legal officer Mira Naseer told MEE: “The opening of a case into the AAC is a positive step. The Charity Commission must take decisive and transparent action against any wrongdoing identified.”
'Tactical gear'
In addition to its fundraising in support of soldiers in Gaza, MEE also identified a fundraising page for Ezrat Achim asking for donations to supply “tactical gear” including “bullet proof vests and helmets, as well as tactical uniforms” to soldiers based in the Gush Etzion area – an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces last week launched a major assault against multiple cities and refugee camps in the West Bank, killing at least 30 Palestinians and demolishing critical infrastructure.
At least 682 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and in settler attacks in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza on 7 October last year following the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.
In an advisory opinion in July, the ICJ ruled Israel’s decades-long occupation of the West Bank and other Palestinian territories illegal.
It called on Israel to evacuate all settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and to end the occupation “as rapidly as possible”.
AAC has previously described its compliance procedures as “gold standard”. It says that all charities it works with have been assessed and are regularly re-checked “to ensure continued compliance”.
MEE understands that the ICJP wrote to AAC in June to raise concerns about its provision of services to Ezrat Achim but did not receive a response. MEE asked AAC whether it had reviewed its operations and the charities it works with in Israel since the start of the war but has not received a response.
Ezrat Achim’s fundraising pages on causematch.com appeared to have been amended on Wednesday to remove details about the types of equipment that donations would be used to provide to soldiers.
The Charity Commission has opened a number of previous regulatory compliance cases into Jewish charities in response to concerns about fundraising for Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza.
Regulatory compliance cases are not formal investigations and not all cases are escalated to full statutory inquiries.
But, citing the decision this week by Foreign Secretary David Lammy to ban 30 arms export licenses to Israel, Naseer of the ICJP called for more scrutiny of charities linked to fundraising for the Israeli military.
“Either these charities’ activities are going unchecked, or the government is looking the other way when these charities violate UK law and Charity Commission guidelines,” she said.
A Charity Commission spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case to assess concerns raised with us about Achisomoch Aid Company, and its fundraising. We will assess the information provided, to decide if there is a role for the Commission.”
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