Measure upping transparency requirements for foreign state-funded groups passes into law in 57-48 vote
Nonprofit organizations that stand to be affected by the NGO law passed by the Knesset late Monday slammed it as unfair and antidemocratic.
The law mandates that NGOs that receive more than half their funds from foreign governments or state agencies disclose that fact in any public reports, advocacy literature and interactions with government officials.
According to a Justice Ministry analysis of the law’s effect, nearly all the roughly two-dozen existing Israeli organizations that are expected to be affected by the new rules belong to the left, including anti-occupation advocates B’Tselem and Yesh Din, as well as pro-Palestinian groups like Zochrot, which advocates for the return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Some Arab groups that advocate for equality for the Arab minority will also be subject to its stipulations.
In a statement, the New York-based New Israel Fund, which helps fund many of these groups, slammed the law as unfair.
“This legislation targets organizations working for human rights and democracy, while allowing ultranationalist organizations to keep their sources of funding hidden despite their claim that the law increases ‘transparency,’” the organization said in a statement.
The law has been criticized by Israeli opposition lawmakers for failing to include donations from private individuals. Most right-wing advocacy groups are enjoy significant support from Jewish or Christian donors or activist organizations abroad.
“The only thing transparent about this law is its true purpose: to intimidate and silence the civic sphere, and those advocating for an end to the occupation in particular,” NIF CEO Daniel Sokatch said.
“This is a deeply anti-democratic move, and Israelis from all sectors of civil society are already feeling its chilling effect. Those of us committed to a vision of Israel as a democracy that offers complete equality to all of its citizens as envisioned in the Declaration of Independence must redouble our efforts. Not only is freedom of expression for Israelis on the line, so is Israel’s standing as a liberal democracy. The stakes are high, and so is our commitment to working toward the future we believe in.”
The NIF’s statement said Israel’s Knesset “should never have seriously considered — much less passed — the repressive NGO bill…. the legislation makes no new information available to the public, allows ultranationalist extremist organizations to hide their sources of funding, undermines Israel’s democratic character and contributes to a damaging chilling effect on the freedom of expression in Israeli society,” the NIF said.
The NIF cited a Peace Now report that said “NGOs affiliated with the political right exploit loopholes in existing law to obscure the sources of their funding. The report showed that 94% of the funding to 9 organizations was hidden from the public. If the Israeli government was genuinely interested in greater transparency for NGOs it would have sought to close those loopholes and apply the same rules to all organizations.”
Several attempts to expand the NGO bill to include private donations were rebuffed by coalition lawmakers.
Sari Bashi, who now serves as the Israel and Palestine Country Director for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, echoed the NIF’s criticism, saying the new law “targets and burdens human rights and left-wing groups by imposing onerous reporting requirements and hefty fines for noncompliance. If the Israeli government were truly concerned about transparency, it would require all NGOs to actively alert the public to their sources of funding – not just those that criticize the government’s policies.”
Bashi is a co-founder of Gisha, one of the groups whose funding sources make it subject to the new rules.
The veteran anti-occupation group Peace Now vowed to appeal the law to the High Court of Justice.
Calling it “a blatant violation of freedom of expression,” the group said its “true intention is to divert the Israeli public discourse away from the occupation and to silence opposition to the government’s policies.” The law was part of a trend of “severe deterioration in Israel’s democracy,” the group said in a statement.
“We will continue to fight this anti-democratic wave in the streets and intend to challenge the NGO law’s validity before the [High] Court.”
Yesh Din, which also stands to be affected by the law, said late Monday that the law is “another element in the political witch hunt against groups that don’t toe the line with the policies of the Israeli government. This is an attempt to shut mouths and silence criticism, instead of dealing with it. It won’t succeed. Yesh Din is proud of its donors and will continue to fight the ongoing curtailing of the rights of Palestinian residents of the West Bank.”
Supporters of the law, including one of its authors, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, said Monday that it was intended to create public awareness about large-scale foreign governmental intervention in Israel’s domestic politics. The law’s authors charge that advocacy groups funded by foreign governments “represent in Israel, in a non-transparent manner, the outside interests of foreign states.”
As reported by The Times of Israel