Israel: 'Some NGOs are seen as the enemy from the inside' [View all]

Source: The Guardian

With a transparency bill proposed in the Knesset that some argue targets human rights organisations, NGOs speak out about challenges to their work

Israeli NGOs and human rights defenders are expressing concern about a proposed NGO transparency bill that has been criticised as discriminatory and anti-democratic.

The bill passed its first reading in the Israeli parliament - the Knesset - in February with a narrow majority, with 50 parliamentarians in favour and 43 against. It would place extra requirements on NGOs that receive over 50% of their funding from foreign governments or organisations.

These NGOs would be required to register themselves as foreign agents and detail their funding in any public or promotional documents. An obligation for staff of these NGOs to wear an identification badge while in the Knesset, indicating that they were funded by a foreign country, was dropped from the bill after the first reading.

While the legislation does not explicitly pick out leftwing organisations, critics argue that in reality it is these organisations that will be impacted if it is passed after its second and third readings. The majority of leftwing organisations in the country receive funding from foreign donors, largely in the EU. Efforts to track the funding of nationalist right wing NGOs however have shown they mostly receive funding from private foreign individuals or Israeli state donations, and consequently would not be subject to the bill.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/may/11/israel-some-ngos-are-seen-as-the-enemy-from-the-inside