Israel Passes Law Targeting Human Rights Organizations

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's parliament passed a controversial law Monday that increases the regulation of many Israeli human rights organizations.

The law approved by a vote of 57 to 48 targets groups that receive more than half their funding from foreign governments or political organizations. In practice, the law will affect liberal groups almost exclusively because hawkish groups in Israel largely rely on donations from wealthy individuals, which are exempt.

The law requires organizations to state that they rely on foreign funding in all communication with public officials and on TV, newspapers, billboards and online. Representatives of these groups must also declare they depend on foreign contributions to the heads of parliamentary committees when participating in meetings. Failure to comply will result in fines.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strongly supported the legislation, saying there is nothing anti-democratic about requiring transparency so the public is aware of the role of foreign governments in funding these groups.

MORE...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_NGO_LAW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-07-11-18-37-24

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_NGO_LAW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-07-11-18-37-24

[Ford_Prefect]

1. Inch by inch, step by step...Neo-fascism spreads under Bibi's rule.

Previous versions of the bill would have labeled the groups as foreign agents and allowed Israel to tax donations received from foreign governments. One particularly contentious proposal that was later dropped would have required representatives of these groups to wear identification tags while they were in Israel's Knesset, or parliament.

During a debate late Monday that lasted several hours, Israeli opposition lawmakers heaped criticism on the legislation even though it had been toned down.

Opposition lawmaker Nachman Shai of the Zionist Union party said, "We will pay for this damage for many generations."

Other opposition lawmakers compared the measure to authoritarian policies in Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The so-called NGO law was approved despite strong criticism from abroad.

German lawmaker Volker Beck, chairman of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group, wrote on Facebook Monday that the law would "tarnish the reputation" of Israel.

Israeli media has reported that nearly all of the Israeli groups that receive more than half their funding from foreign governments are human rights organizations identified with the left.

The anti-settlement group Peace Now announced it will challenge the law in Israel's Supreme Court.

"While the law will delegitimize left-wing organizations, pro-settler NGOs who receive millions of dollars in foreign donations without any transparency will remain unaffected," the group said in a statement.

[RiverNoord]

6. Really 'wear identification tags?'

That was seriously debated? Wow. I mean, just - wow.

[Night Watchman]

8. Ehud Barak Blasts Netanyahu

From Politico, June 3, 2016:

Ehud Barak hadn’t given a speech in months, and speculation was rife about what he was going to say when he took the stage at a prestigious policy conference in Herzliya, an affluent suburb of Tel Aviv, two weeks ago. Barak was one of Israel’s leading political figures for two decades, having served as the country's prime minister in the late 1990s and later as defense minister under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2009 to 2013. Was he about to announce a political comeback?

It turned out that Barak, a former special ops commando officer, had one last mission in mind: To take out his former boss and partner.

In his speech, Barak accused Netanyahu of cowardice, opportunism and fear-mongering. He warned that Israel's current government, arguably the most right wing in its history, was showing “signs of fascism,” and that if Netanyahu wasn’t stopped, Israel was on course to become an apartheid state. “The entire Zionist project is in grave danger,” he proclaimed. And the main source of that danger wasn't Israel’s external enemies, but rather its own democratically elected leader.

Barak hasn’t let up since. “Netanyahu,” he said in a televised interview broadcast a day after his angry speech, “has gone off the rails. He needs to go.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/netanyahu-prime-minister-obama-president-foreign-policy-us-israel-israeli-relations-middle-east-iran-defense-forces-idf-214004#ixzz4EBX0DnZk

[Ash_F]

2. Wealthy individuals are exempt huh?

We have so much in common!

[Ford_Prefect]

3. As long as they lean in the correct direction and don't complain about settlements.

[Ken Burch]

4. The law is based on a despicable lie:

the assertion that foreign donors would only fund human rights organizations out of a desire to attack Israel(as opposed to the reality that foreign donors are driven by a sincere wish to help defend human rights and end the oppression of Palestinians).

It's another example of the canard that criticism of the Israeli government is "anti-Israel&quot and, implicitly, by antisemitism).

[RiverNoord]

5. 'Nothing anti-democratic'...

I expect, then, that, consistent with this remarkable concern with the influence of pernicious foreign 'human rights' groups inside Israel, Netanyahu will next announce that the government of Israel will no longer lobby the government of the United States for military and diplomatic support, nor encourage others ('foreigners') to do so on its behalf.

That would be precisely consistent with such laws. I expect that, in addition, Israel will now require all Israeli businesses operating with any foreign capital to state this on all letterheads, web sites, and advertisements inside Israel. If foreign money is so dangerous to Israel in the business of human rights, then the vastly greater amounts of foreign money invested in Israeli businesses must be even worse.

[TubbersUK]

7. K & R n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Some of the leaders on the right in Israel are as crazy as Trump.

They keep piling on the pressure, building more settlements, shutting down water and power, and making Palestinian lives unliveable. Like an old steam boiler, if you add too much pressure, you end up with a catastrophe.