Donations to Education Aid for Palestinians (EAP), a UK Charity, have been severely disrupted this week as their credit card donations facility has been withdrawn, and they have also been dropped by the Just Giving fundraising platform.
EAP’s credit card donations facility was pulled down from their website on Sunday (24.2.19) and JustGiving closed all EAP’s fundraising pages last Friday (22.2.19).
EAP is a UK charity[1] that specialises in funding Palestinian educational projects. It is closely connected to Interpal, which provided over half of EAP’s funding through a grant in 2017.[2] Interpal has been designated as a terror group in the US, Australia and elsewhere. In July 2008[3] EAP was itself declared by Israel to be a banned organisation, as it was one of the 36 worldwide organisations who were members of the “Union of Good”, an umbrella organisation which formed a fundraising network for Hamas. The Union of Good was designated as a terror organisation by the US Treasury in 2008. [4]
EAP was dropped by the credit card organisations and JustGiving as a result of efforts by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), an organisation of lawyers who support Israel using their legal skills. UKLFI wrote to the organisations and pointed out that if they continued to provide financial services to EAP, they were likely to be in breach of the US and other anti-terror legislation.
Just Giving is a crowdfunding platform that operates in countries including the UK, Australia and the USA. Just Giving has a US subsidiary, JG US, Inc., and also an Australian subsidiary, so would be affected by Australian and US sanctions, even though Interpal is allowed to operate legally in the UK. Last week JustGiving removed Interpal’s fundraising pages.
The fundraising pages for EAP, which were removed by Just Giving include Mahera Ruby’s page, which had raised £6,258, Mohammed Matin had raised £678 and Nudrat Siddiqi had raised £920.
EAP’s Trustees
Essam Yusuf (aka Essam Mustafa) was one of the founding trustees of EAP. He was also a founding trustee of Interpal, and Secretary General of the Union of Good. He was identified by the US Treasury[5] as serving on the Hamas executive committee under Hamas leader Khaled Misha’al, from mid-2007. Yusuf is still one of Interpal’s trustees, although he is no longer a trustee at EAP.
The Chief Executive Officer of EAP is Muin Kamel Mohammed Shabib (aka Moin Shubib).Shabib had been a trustee of EAP[6] between 1994 and 2018. The US Office for Foreign Affairs and Control (OFAC) described Shabib[7] as a senior Hamas activist, who worked for the Hamas financial network. Shabib[8] was the person who at a Hamas meeting in Philadelphia in 1993, categorised the institutions tied to Hamas, so that charities such as Interpal and Educational Aid to Palestinians (which were founded at around that time), would know exactly which Hamas institutions to support.
Zaher Birawi is one of the current trustees of EAP. In December 2013[9] Israel’s money laundering and terror financing prohibition authority issued a notice designating Zaher Birawi, personally. Birawi was a director of the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) from 1998 to 2009. PRC was designated by Israel for its links to Hamas in December 2010.
Birawi has been involved in organizing and launching flotillas against Israel, including the infamous Mavi Marmara flotilla of 2010 and he was a key operative in Viva Palestina, George Galloway’s Hamas support operation. Birawi remains head[10] of the International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza, and was involved in several further attempts to send flotillas to Gaza in 2018.
EAP’s links with The University College of Applied Sciences, Gaza (UCAS).
UCAS was established in 1998 as a technical and vocational education College in Gaza.[11] The American Centre for democracy describes UCAS as “Hamas controlled”. [12]
EAP is involved in funding vocational and technical education at UCAS.[13] In July 2018 Dr Moin Shubib of EAP declared[14] during a UCAS graduation ceremony in Gaza, that EAP would sponsor 60 new students in the vocational programme in the year 2018/2019, and would sponsor 10 new graduates’ small projects.
According to the IDF, UCAS develops and researches rockets for Hamas, and as a result, was the target of bombing during the 2014 Israel / Gaza war. A report from the Arab media stated in August 2014: “The Israel Defense Forces confirmed it struck sites at the University College of Applied Sciences. The IDF said the college served as a lead center in rocket research and development for Hamas.”[15] UCAS was again a target for bombing by the IDF during the recent flare up of violence between Hamas and Israel in November 2018.[16]
UCAS is the host and founder[17] of the annual Palestine Festival for Childhood and Education in Gaza, where it can clearly be seen that children are indoctrinated with hatred for Israel and violence against it.[18] The 2014[19] and 2016 Festivities[20] included young veiled girls and boys in military uniforms simulating stabbing attacks on Israelis, killing IDF soldiers and releasing Palestinian terrorist from Israeli jails. [21]
