Right Wing Takes Another Shot at Israeli NGO’s

By Haaretz November 30, 2011

A new bill aimed at limiting foreign funding of Israeli non-governmental organizations was proposed by Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu on Wednesday, replacing two previous bills that have been proposed and subsequently frozen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The new bill is an updated version of the bill previously proposed by MK Fania Kirshenbaum (Yisrael Beiteinu), which called to impose a 45% tax on foreign funding to NGOs that receive Israeli government funding.

The bill calls to completely prohibit foreign funding to NGOs that deny Israel’s right to exist, incite racism, support armed resistance against Israel, support putting Israeli officials on trial in international courts, calls on insubordination of the army, or those supporting boycotts on the State of Israel.

According to the proposal, all organizations that do not get funding from the Israeli government will have to pay a 45% tax on foreign funding. The organizations will be able to turn to the Finance Minister and request a tax exemption based on certain criteria, yet to be decided upon.

Those proposing the law said that organizations such as Peace Now, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights, and Worker’s Hotline may be given tax exemptions.

On the other hand, organizations that do receive support from the Israeli government can continue to receive foreign funding with no tax exemptions.

Netanyahu recently decided to freeze the parliamentary process that would have ratified the two previous bills that were proposed to limit foreign funding of NGOs.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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