T. Belman. You would think that since NGO’s backing BDS in Israel receive $45 million dollars, most of it from the EU, per year, that the government of Israel would fund Zionist NGO’s or a hasbara campaign to defend Israel in like amount. Unfortunately it gives nothing.
Foreign governments are heavily involved in funding organizations directly or indirectly involved in BDS campaigns, NGO Monitor report finds • EU the largest donor, followed by Norway • Report urges legal measures to bolster transparency.
By Shlomo Cesana, ISRAEL HAYOM
The EU is the biggest donor to NGOs involved in Israeli-Palestinian conflict [Illustrative]
Foreign governments donated some 105 million shekels ($27 million) to 24 nongovernmental organizations involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict between 2012 and 2014, according to a new report by Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor.
According to the report, which was released Monday, the donations were made by foreign governments both directly and indirectly, and “comprise roughly 60 percent of the NIS 176 million [$45 million] reported by 75 Israeli non-profit associations and corporations for the public benefit during that time.”
The report found that the European Union was the largest donor to the NGOs during the reported period, with 17.65 million shekels ($4.5 million), followed by Norway, which donated 13.3 million shekels ($3.4 million).
The report noted that NGOs are obligated to disclose their finances by the Law on Disclosure Requirements for [Groups] Supported by a Foreign Governmental Body, enacted in 2011 as part of the Transparency Law. The law demands that groups disclose the grants’ objectives, and according to the report, many NGOs noted “security forces investigation,” “popular action,” “international activity,” “legal action,” and “general support” as their goals.
Among the groups to comply with the financial disclosure directives were B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, the Geneva Initiative, Yesh Din — Volunteers for Human Rights, the Coalition of Women for Peace, MachsomWatch — Women against the Occupation and for Human Rights, the Adalah Legal Center, the Mossawa Center, Rabbis for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights — Israel, and the Alternative Information Center, to name a few.
NGO Monitor noted that some of these groups “are directly or indirectly involved in BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigns, lawfare, delegitimization, and lobbying against the State of Israel.”
Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, was quoted on the website as saying the Transparency Law “strengthens the central democratic principle of transparency, and sheds light on the processes through which foreign governments channel funds to selected Israeli civil society organizations.”
“The real-time information provided by this legal framework enables the Israeli public to have a fact-based and informed public debate regarding the involvement of foreign governments in the Israeli public discourse. Over the past few years, more and more NGOs have begun submitting reports disclosing their foreign government funders,” said Steinberg.
The report also found that not all NGOs had complied with the law in previous years, and urged the Justice Ministry and the Registrar of Associations to increase their enforcement against organizations that regularly receive foreign funding and fail to properly report it.
Those are only a few of them, that is the thing!
As a Trotskyist I have to seek the causes of this phenomenon.. On the face of this evidence it looks as if there are quite broad sections of Israeli society and especially its political parties and groups who must be involved in this warfare against the state of Israel.
It is necessary to take these groups and to trace their origins. Did their origins arise in countries in the west like America, Norway, Britain? Did their origins arise inside of Israel? Or inside of the Palestinian Arabs?
But also at the bottom of all of this warfare against Israel is the “narrative” by which I mean the narrative of lies – which has grown into the monster of today
Alan Dershowitz has done a lot of the ground work in refuting the lies behind this “Narrative” in his great work the “Case for Israel”
That is a great positive. But it is one thing to write a book and it is quite another to make this live inside of the minds of masses of people.
As a Trotskyist I believe that what has always been missing and what is missing is a Trotskyist Party which will campaign actively on these issues in every forum
This will not be a small group but will be a mass party based on an understanding of the world capitalist crisis and the way that this crisis is reflected inside each country.
We can say that the main reflection in Israel are groups and individuals who spend all their lives attacking the legitimacy of Israel. That is what is unique. There is nothing like this in any other country on earth – including Vatican City, including ther state of Iran.
The main feature of the work of NGO-Monitor is the challenge it makes to world Antisemitism in which many agencies are involved. But it does this work without a real knowledge that it is rotting capitalism that drives this Antisemitism forward, similar to the way that the Nazis were turning to Antisemitism as a result of the failure of world capitalism to give a decent living to millions of Germans following the 1929 Wall Street Crash.
The decay of capitalism, the inability of capitalism to carry mankind forward in a productive manner, creates the conditions for millions to turn to all kinds of outlandish theories. An example, a small example, is the theory of David Icke of interstellar mixing of lizard blood with humans. Antisemitism this outlandish theory is also in that category.
Thus it is not a simple matter to combat this Antisemitism being directed against Israel and is certainly not a matter of entertaining individual protest action against theser NGOs. What they raise is the issue of leadership at a government level in Israel itself. If Israeli leaders themselves talk about “Occupied Territories” and such then they too are the problem not the answer.
Since Israel is in essence at war on many fronts for its existence there needs to be a law which simply forbids attacks on Israel of a physical and propaganda nature.
There is a right to free speech but there can enver be such a right to attack your country when it is in a war
I feel there needs to be a process of education to deal with such people but if it persists then expulsion may be the right solution.
any jew collaborating with BDS should be executed for treason, judicially or extra judicially… all those NGO’s should be barred, their funds confiscated and given to the victims of BDS