Daily Alert Archives

Foreign-Funded NGOs, Political Power and Democratic Legitimacy

(Ynet News) Gerald M. Steinberg - As NGO Monitor research has shown, 30 political non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Israel have received $150 million over the past five years, 2/3 of which was foreign funding from the EU and Western European governments. This has no parallel in any other democratic society. Many of these NGO recipients use the money to promote demonization of Israel, including BDS and the allegations of "war crimes" and apartheid that fuel anti-Semitic attacks around the world. While the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the democratic processes of other countries are central in relations between states, these are violated when European governments become the primary funders of Israeli political NGOs. How would Europeans react if Israel funded polarizing NGOs involved in various separatist movements on the continent? Massive external funding for a very narrow group of unaccountable and polarizing NGOs is in fact corrupting the democratic principles in whose name they claim to speak. The writer is president of NGO Monitor and professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University.
2018-06-08 00:00:00
Full Article