Members of Israel’s opposition parties decried a Knesset bill to levy an 80 percent tax on donations from foreign governments to Israeli NGOs at a Knesset hearing on Monday, May 5, warning that the proposed legislation, which chiefly affects human rights groups, is a blow to freedom of speech and a step toward fascism.
Lawmakers in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee began debating the bill would also erode their right to file lawsuits in Israeli courts. Organizations such as B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and the New Israel Fund have long been targeted by the Israeli right over their focus on Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians and opposition to occupation and war in Gaza. The bill, sponsored by Likud MK Ariel Kallner, would allow the government to tax foreign government donations to domestic nonprofits at a rate of 80 percent, while also stipulating that courts need not consider petitions by groups “primarily financed by a foreign political entity.”
Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi attends a meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, October 15, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
If passed into law, the legislation would apply to NGOs that do not also receive Israeli state funding. The finance minister, with the approval of the Knesset Finance Committee, would be allowed to exempt organizations from the new rules “in special circumstances.”
Arguing in favor of the legislation, which passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum in February, Kallner argued that sanctions imposed on violent settlers in the Palestinian occupied territories by the Biden administration “came as a result of despicable blood libels by delegitimization organizations such as Breaking the Silence and others”. He added that according to fascist group Im Tirzu between 2012 and 2024, “a little more than NIS 1.3 billion ($360 million) flowed from foreign countries to 83 left-wing organizations, some of which are downright anti-Zionist.”
However, “When it comes to the Arab public, there is no doubt that part of the legislator’s intention is to prevent campaigns to encourage voting in Arab society,” Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi told the committee. Accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party of seeking to harm Arab political representation, Tibi said that the coalition was also working to pass a bill that aims to make it easier to disqualify Hadash and Arab lists. Last month, far-right lawmakers approved the first reading of a bill to disqualify a candidate or list of from running in municipal elections on the grounds that they “have denied the existence of the State of Israel as Jewish and democratic,” or expressed “support for terrorism or armed struggle against Israel.”
“If anyone is worried about foreign interference, let them go check past laws to see where the money of oligarchs who support far-right political parties and organizations over the years went, and what happened in the Prime Minister’s Office,” declared Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovich, a former commander of the police Investigations and Intelligence Division
According to Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman, “The Israeli extreme-right government is advancing a bill that would end the work of human rights groups and NGOs in the country by taxing funds they receive from foreign governments to the tune of 80%. This is an attempt to silence all criticism of the occupation, as well as any progressive social agenda. The funders of these organizations, such as Germany and the EU, must use all their power to stop this legislation and save civil society in Israel. It is one of the only bulwarks in the face of fascism and genocide.”
Speaking with The Times of Israel in February, Noa Sattath, the executive director of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, accused the government of attacking civil society groups while leaving right-wing organizations untouched.
“This proposed legislation is a direct assault on Israel’s democracy and part of the ongoing judicial coup. It represents a systematic attack on all institutions that check government power and specifically targets human rights organizations working to protect minorities in Israel and Palestinians in the occupied territories,” Sattath said. “The selective taxation targets only foreign state funding from Israel’s closest allies — including the United States and European Union member states — who support democracy, human rights, and minority protection. Meanwhile, right-wing organizations relying on private donations remain unaffected, and the finance minister has discretionary power to exempt certain organizations, while those receiving state funding are automatically excluded.”
