US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Photo: Exxon Mobil via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – The Israeli legal nongovernmental organization Shurat HaDin is calling on US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to terminate government funding to the US relief agency, American Near-East Refugee Aid (ANERA), after an investigation by Shurat HaDin found ANERA was “actively assisting” terrorist organizations.

According to the probe, funds transferred to ANERA, including from American charities, the United Nations Development Program and the Christian charity World Vision, are “used to support Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) kindergartens that actively indoctrinate children in hatred and killing of Israeli civilians, as well as other PIJ and Hamas organizations, thus enabling them to finance terrorist activity, which is forbidden by US law.” The former head of World Vision recently pled not guilty to charges it funded the terror group Hamas which operates out of the Gaza Strip.

Shurat HaDin founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner has called on the State Department to enforce US law, which prohibits the transfer of funds or resources to terrorist organizations through their affiliated charities.

“Under the guise of an organization that works on behalf of refugees and the needy, an American relief agency has become a partner to terror organizations,” Darshan-Leitner said. “In recognition of the US administration and the new wind blowing from the White House and the State Department, I hope and believe that federal funding for ANERA will be suspended, as long as it continues to finance terrorism. This is how we have come to see the terror infrastructure.”