An Israel Hayom analysis reveals that the six German foundations in Israel, which are affiliated with political factions back home, may lack necessary approvals by Israeli authorities and possibly failed to properly file reports. This could have implications on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The German federal parliament | File photo: Getty Images
Law, order, and bureaucracy have always been sacred in Germany, both in its good and bad days. So if that is the case, how is it possible that millions of dollars are flowing into Israel from the German government in what may be a direct violation of Israeli law?
Based on information collected by the right-wing watchdog group Im Tirtzu, Israel Hayom conducted an analysis that revealed how German political foundations operate in Israel, getting involved in national matters and attempting to influence public opinion.
Over the last decades, foreign state entities provided over 890 million shekels ($268 million) in funding to left-wing and anti-Zionist organizations. Germany stands out in particular having provided at least NIS 150 million ($45 million) in funds for these groups, more than any other country.
The money flows through various channels, and one of them is political funds, which are linked to factions in the Bundestag, the German federal parliament.
The government budget given to the party fund is derived from the political power of the party it is affiliated with. The foundations, a strange hybrid creature, are apparently independent, so the German government cannot determine where the money will go, but ideological compatibility is required between the foundations and the parties with which they are affiliated.
Six such political foundations operate in Israel, of which two are defined as foreign companies and four as associations for the benefit of the public, which are supervised – or at least should be – by the Justice Ministry’s Registrar of Associations.
But it appears that none of the four operate on a level of transparency required by law. One of them, for example, has not submitted financial reports since 2014. The Registrar of Associations repeatedly reprimands them and even denied three of them proper management approvals, but apart from that, nothing has been done.
In 2014, two of the foundations applied to the registrar to change their legal status in Israel from a foreign company to a non-profit organization. These are the Konrad Adenauer Foundation affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Angela Merkel’s party, and the Hanns Seidel Foundation, affiliated with the Christian Social Union.
The Registrar of Associations, then headed by Avi Behar, demanded that the foundations meet the required conditions, such as appointing directors and an audit committee. They, in turn, claimed that it was not necessary due to them being a German entity.
A letter dated May 8, 2012 to the Registrar of Associations from attorney Michael Pappe, who represented the foundations, said, “According to German law, especially with an emphasis on political foundations, any action carried out by any of the foundations must be approved by the executive board, which supervises the foundation’s operations and any branch outside of Germany, including a thorough check that all goals are being maintained and there are no deviations from them, performing a financial audit, approving decisions and the like.
“Since these are political foundations, there is an obligation to transfer the reports of the board of directors to a special court, and it is the one who supervises the proper conduct of the political foundations, including the operations of the affiliates abroad. Therefore, in the event that this or that foundation does not meet the requirements… the court has the authority to stop its operation… Therefore it can be seen that, although there is no actual appointment of directors, the members of the executive committee who are respected in Germany, and among them the heads of the various parties, including the chancellor of Germany, supervise the branches outside of it [the country] … and therefore there is no need for appointing directors because their work is performed by elected officials and the court according to law.”
To put it more simply, Pappe claimed the foundations are supervised by German authorities and as such, are exempt from the requirements of Israeli law.
The Registrar of Associations was not convinced and demanded that directors and an audit committee be appointed to branches of the foundations in Israel, as required by Israeli law.
The Justice Ministry received another letter, dated June 3, 2012, now marked “urgent,” in which Pappe demanded a one-on-one meeting at the registrar to clarify the unusual status of the foundations, and also to hint at the political consequences that may arise if the registrar continued to be “stubborn”.
“Such a demand has far-reaching political consequences, both in Israel and in Germany, and certainly in the relations between the countries… We would like to schedule an urgent meeting with you… which has the ability to find a compromise for all the existing differences, as well as to prevent the political and interstate consequences that may occur”. In the end, the foundations agreed to appoint directors.
As of 2022, four German political foundations operate in Israel. The Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated with The Greens, may not have submitted financial reports as required by Israeli law since 2014 and it is unclear if it has proper management approvals from the Registrar of Associations.
The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, affiliated with the Die Linke faction, allegedly does not have such approval either. In the foundation’s correspondence with the registrar, the latter raises allegations of irregularities in its conduct, such as the fact that members of the audit committee and the board of directors allegedly received a salary in violation of Israel’s 1999 Companies Law.
The Hanns Seidel Foundation, which as mentioned above, is affiliated with the Christian Social Union, allegedly does not have a proper management permit either.
In a letter dated Jan. 6th, 2019, attorney Hila Benita from the Israeli Corporations Authority said that a review of the financial statements showed that the Hanns Seidel Foundation operated projects in the PA.
German authorities were required to report to the Registrar of Associations “how this activity was consistent with the registered and approved goals of the company.” The foundation’s file reveals that it never bothered to reply.
Israel’s 1980 associations law states that a district court may order the closing of a foundation if its activities are “conducted in a manner contrary to law or its objects or rules.”
Another such entity is the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which as mentioned above, is affiliated with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. Like the other three, it does not have proper management approval from the Registrar of Associations either and has not provided financial records in years as well. It even has a Palestinian branch, whose activities are not fully known, but what is known is that one of its most prominent employees is Elena Jabrin, an Arab-Germany with Israeli citizenship, who is known for strong criticism against Israel and support for martyrs.
Although the Registrar of Associations does reprimand the associations for irregularities, the Justice Ministry does not impose sanctions on them, and the funds continue to flow unobstructed and enable illegal operations in Israel.
Two more German political foundations operate in Israel as foreign companies and therefore their activities are even less transparent.
These are the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, related to the Free Democratic Party and Friedrich Ebert Foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s faction. No documents were found in the files of these two foreign companies showing that they submitted a quarterly report on receiving a donation from a foreign entity, which goes against Israeli law.
Israel Hayom reached out to the Germany Embassy in Israel to inquire why the foundations operate in Israel in general, and especially without having met the necessary transparency requirements.
The reply was, “For any questions concerning the political foundations, we would like to refer you to their offices since they operate independently of the government.”
Thanks for nothing, as they say, because such a reply ignores the promise of the representatives of the foundations to the Registrar of Associations because these are supposed to be entities supervised by members of the parliament and a special court in Germany.
Israel Hayom then reached out to the foundations that operate as associations for the benefit of the public. All of them are managed by a German representative and all of their other employees are Israelis. They all sounded surprised to find out that they may not have proper approval to operate in Israel or that they have not submitted financial records in years. Israel Hayom also requested a breakdown of the budget and the Israeli organizations they support.
Since some of the foundations do not submit reports as required, there is no accurate information on the total budget scope that they transfer to Israeli organizations. But there is at least one way to get a partial idea, through the Israeli organizations’ reports to the Registrar of Associations, the final destination of the funds.
Alon Schvartzer, policy director at Im Tirtzu, found that 54 political organizations operate in Israel, some of which are identified with the most radical Left, and reported that they received a total of at least NIS 30 million ($9 million) from German funds in the last decade. The actual amount could be much higher given that these entities do not report the German funding they received from foreign political entities.
The Israeli branch of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation alone, for example, reported in its financial reports that it transferred funds to 96 Israeli organizations and ventures in the years 2012-2020 for a total amount of approximately NIS 22 million ($6.5 million). In addition, in those years the Hanns Seidel Foundation reported that it transferred about NIS 14 million ($4.2 million) to groups in Israel.
Just these two amount to more than what the Israeli organizations in the Registrar of Associations. The only conclusion that remains is that the sums provided by all six foundations together, which are not disclosed to the Israeli public, are much larger.
What are the entities and who are the individuals who benefit from such an abundance of German funds? Firstly, a long list of current and former Knesset members whose flights were paid for by these foundations. These include Likud members such as Amir Ohana, or Knesset members from the center or the moderate Left such as Yoel Hasson, Meirav Ben Ari, Sharren Haskel, and Nachman Shai, but mostly Arab MKS, such as Ahmad Tibi, Ayman Odeh, Jamal Zahalka and others, or from the Left, lawmakers Tamar Zandberg, Mossi Raz, Nitzan Horowitz and more.
Horowitz, who serves as health minister, was seen, by the way, at the inauguration of the new office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in October 2021. He was joined in the celebrations by Labor head Merav Michaeli as well as former President of the European ParliamentMartin Schulz, who also led Germany’s Social Democratic Party.
Israel organizations that benefitted from the funds include left-wing group Ir Amim, which has received the most money, over a million shekels, and opposes and undermines Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem; the Association for Civil Rights, which defends the families of terrorists in courts; the left-wing Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem; Shatil, the executive arm of the New Israel Fund, which received hundreds of thousands of shekels from the Seidel foundation supposedly for “election activity” (what does a foreign government foundation have to do with elections in Israel?); Peace Now, which receives money from the Ebert foundation, and advocated for protests against Benjamin Netanyahu on Balfour street; and Zochrot, an anti-Zionist organization that works to “implement the right of return of Palestinian refugees.”
The foundations also deal with matters that are entirely internal, such as funding the Negev Coexistence Forum, a Jewish-Arab organization that organized demonstrations in the Negev, some of which turned violent; the Association of Ethiopian Jews, an organization fighting discrimination and racism that was one of the leaders of the violent protests following the killing of Solomon Teka; or Molad’s campaign against what it claimed was “brainwashing” religious studies in schools.
Like many left-wing organizations, Molad allegedly doesn’t report the German funding it receives from foundations defined as foreign political entities, which allows it to keep the information secret.
A report by Im Tirtzu, which examined 20 far left-wing organizations, allegedly found that 13 of them reported funding from at least one of the six German foundations registered in Israel as a donation from a corporation, rather than a donation from a foreign political entity, of which seven received money from the Ebert foundation.
The document also showed discrepancies between the organizations’ reports and those of the German foundations.
And the problems don’t stop there. Molad also claimed that the religious Zionists have a monopoly over the matter of Jewish identity in secular schools, and thus allegedly brainwash Israeli children and receive considerable funds in return. The matter took over the media and a bill was even submitted by left-wing MKs to ensure that “the minds of the students are not poisoned.”
“A political foundation linked to a German party is the one behind the encouragement of Judeophobia in the State of Israel,” Matan Peleg, director of Im Tirtzu, writes in his latest book “Country for Sale.”
“It’s no coincidence that Germany is the leading country in the world in funding Israeli far left-wing organizations, with an amount of approximately NIS 155 million in the last decade, even more than the European Union,” he said. “The Germans have a longstanding obsession with the Jewish people. When you check the amounts that Germany transfers to anti-Zionist propaganda organizations that work to discredit the State of Israel and the IDF soldiers or work to disintegrate Israeli society from within, you realize that in the end, all they are asking is to sear their conscience after the Holocaust by funding organizations that tell them that the Jews are supposedly the source of world evil and that they, the Germans, ‘save’ the weak.
“The State of Israel should not stand helpless in the face of this phenomenon, certainly not when it takes on the form of political subversion that threatens its character and the proper conduct of the state. We call on the Foreign Ministry to demand an immediate halt to the transferred funds and expect it to submit an official complaint to the German government so that it will prosecute those who are responsible for violations of the law. Also, the Israel Police and the State Attorney’s Office must enforce the law and prosecute those responsible here in Israel,” he said.
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