Soccer players live in dread of the “own goal,” where a player inadvertently kicks the ball into his own team’s goal, giving the other side the point. As I write, Israel appears poised to provide the world with a rare example of two “own goals,” and in the process harming Israeli democracy.
The Israeli cabinet set up the first on Sunday by approving two bills aimed at clipping the wings of human-rights NGOs that work in Israel by limiting their capacity to raise funds overseas. Pray that cooler heads prevail and the Knesset buries the bills. But that will not be the end of the story, as the bills are a response to the other short-sighted “own goal” committed by many of those NGOs.
The bill proposed by Likud MK Ofir Akunis would limit the ability of Israeli “political associations” to accept donations above 20,000 shekels from foreign governments. A political association is defined quite broadly: “an association whose goals include an attempt to impact on the State of Israel’s political and security agenda, or an association in the framework of which activities of political nature take place.” Evidently blinded by their hostility to the perceived left-wing agenda of the human-rights NGOs, the bill’s supporters seem unaware that this definition might apply to all sorts of “political agenda” activities that they presumably do not want to harm, including contributions from agencies of democratic governments and international organizations to support environmental research, safety legislation, women’s empowerment, workers’ rights, health policies, etc. The second bill, proposed by Israel Beitenu MK Faina Kirshenbaum, would tax such contributions at the confiscatory rate of 45%. Now that these proposals enjoy government endorsement, coalition discipline could ease their passage through the Knesset.
Curiously, the ministerial committee approved both measures even though they contradict each other. By setting such a low limit on contributions from foreign governments’ agencies the Akunis Bill effectively forbids them, while the other proposal taxes them. It calls to mind the old joke about the acerbic restaurant critic who noted that “the food was awful … and such small portions!”
READ MORE: http://bit.ly/1inHRZa
Two Israeli “Own Goals”
Soccer players live in dread of the “own goal,” where a player inadvertently kicks the ball into his own team’s goal, giving the other side the point. As I write, Israel appears poised to provide the world with a rare example of two “own goals,” and in the process harming Israeli democracy.
The Israeli cabinet set up the first on Sunday by approving two bills aimed at clipping the wings of human-rights NGOs that work in Israel by limiting their capacity to raise funds overseas. Pray that cooler heads prevail and the Knesset buries the bills. But that will not be the end of the story, as the bills are a response to the other short-sighted “own goal” committed by many of those NGOs.
The bill proposed by Likud MK Ofir Akunis would limit the ability of Israeli “political associations” to accept donations above 20,000 shekels from foreign governments. A political association is defined quite broadly: “an association whose goals include an attempt to impact on the State of Israel’s political and security agenda, or an association in the framework of which activities of political nature take place.” Evidently blinded by their hostility to the perceived left-wing agenda of the human-rights NGOs, the bill’s supporters seem unaware that this definition might apply to all sorts of “political agenda” activities that they presumably do not want to harm, including contributions from agencies of democratic governments and international organizations to support environmental research, safety legislation, women’s empowerment, workers’ rights, health policies, etc. The second bill, proposed by Israel Beitenu MK Faina Kirshenbaum, would tax such contributions at the confiscatory rate of 45%. Now that these proposals enjoy government endorsement, coalition discipline could ease their passage through the Knesset.
Curiously, the ministerial committee approved both measures even though they contradict each other. By setting such a low limit on contributions from foreign governments’ agencies the Akunis Bill effectively forbids them, while the other proposal taxes them. It calls to mind the old joke about the acerbic restaurant critic who noted that “the food was awful … and such small portions!”
READ MORE: http://bit.ly/1inHRZa
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Edward Rettig