Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Israel Plans Bill That Would Shut Down Critical NGOs

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A new bill being prepared would allow the Israeli government to close left-wing NGOS that are critical of the Israeli military or call for boycotts of Israel.

The bill Is being prepared by Israel’s Tourism Minister Yariv Levin at the behest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.

Levin reportedly started working on it about five months ago. The legislation is set to be reviewed by legal advisors and approved by Netanyahu in the coming weeks, for introduction during the Knesset’s winter session.

The bill would affect NGOs such as Breaking the Silence, which brings former army soldiers to schools and other venues both inside and outside of Israel to talk about alleged abuses of Palestinians under occupation.

Netanyahu on Sunday told a summit of Christian reporters in Jerusalem that he plans to create a parliamentary committee to investigate the funding NGOs receive from foreign governments.

The Knesset in July 2016 passed controversial legislation that requires nongovernmental organizations to publicly declare their foreign government funding.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.