The Charity Commission has said that it will work with the Foreign Office to produce guidance on the work of registered UK charities being seen to assist the development of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.
It comes after Keir Starmer, speaking at Prime Minster’s Questions in the House of Commons yesterday, said: “Settlements are a flagrant breach of international law, and no UK charity should be supporting them.”
As first reported in the Guardian yesterday, Labour MP Melanie Ward claimed 32 charities in England and Wales had donated £28m to Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law.
In a letter to the commission, Ward, formerly chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians, urged the regulator to take action by investigating the charities and removing them from its register.
Two of the charities named in the article, Kasner Charitable Trust (KCT) and UK Toremet, were also accused last year of funding a high school in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
At the time, the regulator said that it was seeking advice from the attorney general on the issue.
Meeting with minister
A spokesperson for the commission said it had received the letter from Ward and was “carefully considering the serious matters she raises, both in relation to the 32 charities and the wider issues”.
Commission chief executive David Holdsworth met the government’s Middle East minister Hamish Falconer this week, they said, at which they agreed that the regulator and Foreign Office would produce guidance for charities on these issues.
“We will then hold the sector to that guidance,” they said.
The commission has also been contacted by the culture secretary Lisa Nandy and foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, the spokesperson said, and it is “carefully considering the matters they raised”.
“We share with government a concern about the potential impact, including on public trust and confidence, of registered charities being seen to actively assist in the development or expansion of illegal settlements in Palestine,” the commission spokesperson said.
“All charities must be able to demonstrate that they have charitable purposes for the public benefit, wherever in the world they operate.
“We have been considering this matter actively, having received complaints about a number of named charities by members of parliament.
“However, this is a complex and contentious issue, which touches on wider legal principles about charities’ right to operate, and support the most vulnerable, in parts of the world in which there may be conflict, contested jurisdiction, or lawlessness.
“It is right that we consider the implications of any actions carefully.”
Prior scrutiny of charity
On UK Toremet specifically, the commission spokesperson said: “We have undertaken three separate regulatory compliance cases involving the charity about its work in Palestine since 2016.
“We issued the charity’s trustees with statutory guidance and an action plan, which warned it must comply with the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.
“The commission also communicated to the trustees the government’s position that construction of settlements in Palestine is illegal under international law.”
A spokesperson for the charity said: “UK Toremet assesses grant applications on one basis only: whether the specific activity proposed meets the English legal definition of public benefit and falls within the scope of charitable purpose under English law.
“That standard is applied consistently and without prejudice, regardless of the geographical location of an activity or the demographic of those it serves.”
The spokesperson said one of the charity’s grants went to a football programme in the outskirts of Ramallah in the West Bank that provides a safe environment for young people at risk.
“That activity takes place beyond Israel’s pre-1967 borders. It benefits Palestinian civilians. It is charitable under English law, and UK Toremet supports it on that basis,” they said.
Ward also said that if gift aid were claimed against the £28m donations in the usual way, it would mean taxpayers had subsidised illegal settlements to the tune of £5.6m.
The commission spokesperson emphasised that it does not administer gift aid and that it does not have a remit to investigate crimes or breaches of the Geneva Convention.
Civil Society has contacted KCT for comment.
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