NGO Monitor Background and Analysis Regarding Knesset “Anti-Boycott Law”
Overview
On Monday, July 11, the Knesset passed the “anti-boycott” bill, which allows “citizens to bring civil suits against persons and organizations that call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts against Israel, Israeli institutions or regions under Israeli control.”
As explained below, NGO Monitor does not see this legislation as the appropriate means to combat the BDS movement. However, numerous NGOs have released misleading and false statements about the new law, including the New Israel Fund, which wrongly claimed that the bill “criminalizes freedom of speech,” and Gush Shalom, which says the law is “a death sentence for the right to freedom of expression.”
The anti-boycott law does not specifically address boycotts of “settlements;” it is meant to address calls for boycotts anywhere in and against Israel. The global BDS movement targets all of Israel, even within the Green Line, and explicitly rejects the existence of Israel within any borders.
The intense public debate and discussion about the new law is indicative of the strength and vibrancy of Israeli democracy, not its decline, as many political advocacy NGOs have claimed. These same NGOs are preparing to challenge the new law in the Israeli courts, another sign of a strong democracy. Furthermore, those NGOs could have lobbied MKs and presented alternatives, in order to stop the bill. Instead, they spend more time and resources lobbying European Parliaments in opposing Israeli government policy.
In addition, the intense attention from both NGOs and media regarding the new law again demonstrates an obsession and disproportionate focus on Israel. Human Rights Watch (HRW), for example, within hours of the bill’s passage, released a statement attacking the bill. In contrast, it took the organization nearly a week to comment on the April 7 murder of an Israeli boy on a school bus targeted by a laser-guided Hamas rocket. And HRW and other NGOs continue to underreport the atrocities in Libya, Syria, North Korea, and other totalitarian regimes in the region.
Main Issues
- The “Anti-Boycott bill” (MK Ze’ev Elkin – Likud), that passed into law on Monday, July 11, allows “citizens to bring civil suits against persons and organizations that call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts against Israel, Israeli institutions or regions under Israeli control.”
- NGO Monitor is concerned this new law is counterproductive, not the most appropriate framework, and will only polarize important discussions regarding the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The law will not shed light or encourage informed criticism on the NGOs and their foreign government funders that lead most BDS campaigns.
- Regarding other legislation in June 2011 dealing with foreign government NGO funding – MK Ofir Akunis’s (Likud) bill on limiting foreign government donations to NGOs and MK Faina Kirschenbaum’s (Israel Beiteinu) bill to revoke NGO tax-free status on donations from foreign entities – Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, stated, “However, the answer to this challenge [NGO use of foreign government funding] is not to curtail NGOs’ freedom of expression…Israel’s vibrant democracy does not merely survive criticism, it thrives and is improved by it, especially when much of this ‘criticism’ can be exposed for what it really is: disingenuous and ideologically motivated propaganda.”
- In February 2011, the Knesset adopted the NGO Funding Transparency Law (MK Ze’ev Elkin – Likud). The objective of this law is to provide Israeli democracy and civil society with the information necessary to assess the extent and impact of secret foreign government funding for a narrow group of political advocacy NGOs, some of which promote boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Many of the NGOs that referred to the anti-boycott law as anti-democratic used the same language regarding the NGO Transparency Law.
- Both the secrecy of these funding procedures and the manipulation of civil society by external groups and governments violate the accepted norms and practices among sovereign democratic nations.
- There is deep concern among Israel’s democratically elected representatives regarding foreign government funding of political advocacy NGOs that are centrally involved in delegitimization campaigns. This concern is also reflected consistently in public opinion polls.
- The “Anti-Boycott Law,” and other legislation regarding foreign government funding of NGOs, is a response to the absence of basic policy changes among the European governments that are responsible for supporting the BDS movement.
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