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New bill aims to stop foreign funding of pro-terror NGOs based in Israel

If new bill passes, foreign donors who support terror, such as Qatar, will no longer be able to fund NGOs operating in Israel.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Religious Zionism MK Almog Cohen proposed a new clause for an existing law which requires NGOs operating in Israel to disclose the sources of their foreign funding, which would bar financing from countries that don’t have official diplomatic relations with the State of Israel.

“Under the noses of the citizens of Israel, funds of foreign countries are operating whose purpose is to incite violence amongst the Arabs of Israel. These are countries that fund terrorist organizations on a regular basis,” Cohen stated.

“A vacuum has been created here that causes extremism among the Arabs of Israel, seeks to prevent integration into the state, and especially is in favor of serious incitement.

“We must act as soon as possible to eradicate this serious phenomenon, [and] the bill I submitted will put an end to it. We must not under any circumstances give a hand to the money of countries with which we have no relations to destroy and take over the country for us,” he said.

According to a statement from Cohen and Zionist NGO Im Tirtzu, a number of countries that support terror and refuse to acknowledge Israel’s legitimacy as a state are donating millions of dollars each year to organizations purporting to serve Israel’s Arab communities.

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The Jerusalem-based NGO Development Center (NDC) reportedly received most of its funding from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank in recent years.

Neither Qatar nor Saudi Arabia has diplomatic relations with Israel. Qatar has warm relations with the Hamas terrorist organization and provides funding for its activities.

NGOs that receive financing from the NDC must commit to rejecting “normalization with the Israeli occupier” and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“The breach in the dam must be closed in order to stop the flow of money from countries with which Israel has no relations. These funds are used, among other things, to promote anti-Israeli Arab nationalism, incitement against the state and even [to] support boycotts,” said Matan Peleg, CEO of Im Tirtzu.

“We thank MK Almog Cohen for his important activity on this critical issue. If we don’t act as soon as possible, we will get a fifth column here in the country because of the large amount of money transferred for this purpose.”