Proposed legislation to make groups who campaign largely on Palestinian issues declare funding from foreign governments passes first reading in parliament

An Israeli bill targeting groups that campaign largely on Palestinian human rights issues has overcome its first hurdle in the process to become law.



The proposed legislation, which would compel NGOs receiving most of their funding from foreign governments to declare it in official reports, passed its first reading in the Israeli parliament by 50 votes to 43 on Tuesday.

The legislation has been criticised as it would only affect leftwing Israeli organisations, many of which are funded by EU countries, and not rightwing NGOs, which are supported by private donations from wealthy supporters of Israel. MPs who oppose the legislation described it as “political persecution” and an erosion of Israeli democracy.

The opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, said the law would damage Israel’s standing among its friends abroad. Last month, the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said: “Governments must protect free expression and peaceful dissent and create an atmosphere where all voices can be heard.”

The bill is being promoted by the rightwing justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, who says it will boost transparency as the government seeks to fight foreign interference and attempts to delegitimise the state of Israel.

Speaking in a parliamentary debate before the first of three votes on the bill, Shaked made clear the politically sectarian nature of the legislation. “After years in which the leftwing exploited the issue of transparency and used it as an administrative and political tool against the rightwing, you began to think that transparency was your inheritance and began to treat it like your own property. As if transparency were a property that was registered in your father’s name,” she said.

Shaked’s bill, which has the support of the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is seen by critics as a key front in Israel’s escalating culture wars, which have pitted the rightwing government against NGOs, Israeli artists, and foreign media and governments.

At the request of Netanyahu, a proposed requirement for NGO members to wear a badge indicating that their organisationwas funded by a foreign country has been dropped from the bill.

“I do not understand how a requirement for transparency is anti-democratic; the opposite is true,” Netanyahu said last month. “In a democratic regime, we need to know who is financing such NGOs, from the right, the left, up or down.”

Leftwing Israeli NGOs say they have been subjected to increasingly personal attacks in recent months, including regular harassment and even death threats.

The settlement watchdog Peace Now has called the bill “a hate crime against democracy”. In a statement on Tuesday, the group said: “The passing of the NGO bill is a violent and discriminatory act of public shaming against those criticising the government. Despite Netanyahu’s statements, the bill resembles the situation in Russia and not that in the United States or in any other democratic country.”

During the parliamentary debate, the head of the leftwing Meretz party, Zehava Galon, said: “The ones who are making Israel look bad around the world are Ayelet Shaked and her settler friends. The world hates Israel not because of what the organisations publicise but rather because of the occupation.”

The bill was also criticised by the head of the centre-right Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid. He said he was no friend of the organisations being targeted but that the bill was a clumsy measure that would increase support for the NGOs abroad.



Netanyahu is expected to introduce another bill that would make it possible to suspend sitting MPs for denying Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, inciting racism and supporting the armed struggle of a terror organisation or an enemy state.

The bill is aimed at Arab Israeli MPs, three of whom are currently suspended for meeting the families of Palestinians killed during attempted attacks on Israelis. It would be introduced as an amendment toughening an existing provision in Israel’s basic law.