WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A new bill is being proposed which will grant the Zionist regime powers to extend its crackdown on human rights groups.
The Ministerial Committee on Legislation will put forward a plan on Sunday to impose a tax on 65 percent of foreign donations to Israeli and Palestinian humanitarian and human rights groups.
The bill fulfils one of the promises made to the far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of their coalition agreement at the end of last year.
Lawyers warned against the plan at the time and said that the move is similar to steps taken against human rights organizations in undemocratic countries. According to the deal, the regime will pass the law 180 days after it is sworn in.
If adopted, as is thought likely, the new tax will have a serious impact on human rights groups and NGOs. Some of Israel’s most prominent and best-known rights organizations, including Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Peace Now and Yesh Din, rely on foreign funding from the European Union and U.S. In 2021, B’Tselem joined other major human rights group in branding the Zionist regime as an apartheid regime.
Michael Sfard, the legal adviser to Yesh Din, an organization that acts to protect the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank, warned against the bill in December: “If this section passes, it will be a fatal blow to the human rights community.”
Sfard explained that the bill is intended to paralyze the activities of groups that criticize the Zionist regime’s policies targeting the Palestinians. He added that the move by the extreme far-right Zionist cabinet will not harm right-wing organizations such as Kohelet and Elad because, unlike human rights groups, most of the donations they receive from overseas come from private individuals and bodies whose interests, in general, are not concerned with promoting democracy and human rights.
The U.S. is reported to have conveyed its strong opposition to the legislation.
Germany’s ambassador to the occupied territories, Steffen Seibert, said on Twitter that the bill “is a matter of grave concern to us and to many of Israel’s international partners.”
The Bill has also been denounced by the French Embassy. A spokesperson is reported as saying that the legislation is “deeply concerning.”