French gov't supports youth project with ties to Palestinian terror group

On July 10, 2019, at the Jerusalem French Institute a new youth program for east Jerusalem was launched in the presence of UN employees in coordination with the Al Bustan center.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Palestinains rally for the PFLP 390 (photo credit: REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini)
Palestinains rally for the PFLP 390
(photo credit: REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini)
The French government, along with local municipalities in France, has donated almost €400,000 to a new youth program in east Jerusalem in coordination with a a socio-cultural center run by a convicted member of the terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), NGO Monitor reported.
On July 10, 2019, at the Jerusalem French Institute a new youth program for east Jerusalem was launched in the presence of UN employees in coordination with the Al Bustan center.
The project, “Towards the Youth of East Jerusalem” was initiated by the RCDP, a French association that supports ties between local French and Palestinian authorities.
The project is funded by various local French government bodies, including the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, who donated €204,000, the municipality of Rennes, €34,286, the municipality of Ivry-Sur-Seine (€21,429), and other French municipalities.
The Al Bustan center is described as a socio-cultural center, and listed as one of their founders, treasurer and contact point for the new project is Daoud Ghoul.
In 2015, Ghoul was convicted in Israel for his membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), for which Ghoul served an 18 month sentence.
The PFLP is a secular Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. It has been classified as a terrorist organization by the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, the EU and Israel.
A verdict from a Jerusalem District Court obtained by NGO Monitor stated that Ghoul "has two criminal convictions in his past for membership in a terrorist organization in 2005 and 2006, and for ideologically motivated violent crimes, for which he was sentenced to significant jail sentences of 12 and 18 months.  Nevertheless, this was not sufficient to deter him and he returned to commit offenses in the years following his release.”
The Al Bustan center, based in Silwan, has a history of promoting violent and anti-Israel ideas among their young members. One post published on Facebook in July 2018 showed pictures of a youth camp, in which young Palestinians wore different flags representing countries on their shirts. The children representing Israel and the United States brandished guns and proceeded to conduct a mock execution of “Palestine.”
It has also shared praise of terrorist attacks in Israel and propaganda of various terrorist groups through Facebook posts.

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The involvement of an international government has led the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of Jerusalem City Council members sent an official protest to the French government, raising their concerns about the issue.