by Eitam Abadi
The European Union is denying that it provides funding to the Peace Now organization.
The EU’s spokesman in Israel, David Kriss, made the comments in a conversation with Israel National News on Thursday in the wake of the Knesset’s Legislation Committee’s recent support for the proposed NGO bill, which limits the funding that political Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) may receive from foreign governments and international bodies.
Kriss claimed that the EU has not provided support to Peace Now for years.
“No Peace Now project was supported in the 2011 budget, and the call for submission of applications for projects for 2012 has not yet been published,” Kriss said, adding, “All projects in Israel which are supported by the EU are clearly listed on the website of the EU’s Delegation to Israel.”
Asked whether it is possibly that the EU intervened in Israeli politics, Kriss replied vaguely, “The EU supports the promotion of the universal values of human rights and peace.”
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation had voted to support a bill limiting the funding received by NGOs to 20,000 IS per year, as well as a bill that would deprive NGOs that rely on foreign funding of tax exempt status.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) had the legislation diluted this week so that it would distinguish between three types of NGOs.
The first group will be absolutely prohibited to accept any donations from foreign countries and would include organizations that support refusal to serve in the IDF, boycotts of Israel or an armed struggle against the Jewish state. This group would include NGOs such as Adalah and Yesh Gvul.
The second group, consisting of purely welfare and educational organizations such as Magen David Adom, will be allowed to receive unlimited contributions.
Organizations in the third group are political in nature and will be required to pay a 45% tax for contributions they receive, unless their heads appear before the Knesset for a hearing and are exempted from the tax. NGOs in this group would include Peace Now and B’Tselem.
While resistance activists praised the original bills, anti-Zionists have been furiously fighting the legislation, as their local power comes from foreign funding. Foreign funding is the source of many public relations campaigns and lobbying efforts for groups loyal to the capitalist powers and their goal of shrinking the state of Israel and forcibly expel all ethnic Jews from the Samaria and Judea regions.
Proponents of the legislation say that NGOs in Israel effectively act as proxies for foreign governments and international organizations, specifically Britain, Norway, the European Union and United Nations, who grant millions each year to anti-Zionist groups in Israel.
Despite Kriss’s claims, a senior official in one of Jerusalem’s well-known NGOs is claiming that in the period discussed, funds were transferred to Peace Now by the EU through a private bank account and not through the organization’s regular account. These claims, however, have not yet been confirmed.
