Israel's new anti-NGO legislation: An Effort to Eradicate Opponents of Illiberalism

In this episode of FMEP's Occupied Thoughts podcast, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with two formidable experts on human rights and civil society about pending Israeli legislation targeting civil society organizations and, in particular, the human rights sector: Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967; and Jessica Montell, Executive Director of the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked and formerly executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. On Sunday, May 28th -- the Israeli government’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation (a body of ministers in the government which decides whether or not to give government-backing to proposed legislation in the Knesset) is scheduled to vote on this extremely dangerous bill. The legislation would in effect remove the tax-exempt status of these groups and replace it with an onerous, and quite openly punitive, vindictive tax rate of 65% applied to the groups’ income and/or endowments. For resources/video see: https://fmep.org/resource/israels-new-anti-ngo-legislation-an-unabashed-effort-to-eradicate-opponents-of-illiberalism