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Well, at least the two signatories of the Camp David Peace Accords have some shared values. Naturally, the US approach is not evenhanded … freedom and democracy are the big losers.
Clinton concerned over Israeli democracy
WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced deep concern over a wave of anti-democratic legislation in Israel and in particular a bill proposing to limit donations to human rights organizations. Clinton also criticized the growing exclusion of women from Israel’s public life.
‘Foreign funding bills our death sentence’
The right wing parties may have sought to constrain the left wing but their move could damage many social activities: The non-profit sector is concerned that the foreign funding bills approved Sunday by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation could harm the activities of a long line of human rights and social organizations.
Dr. Nissan Limor, head of the Institute for Civic Responsibility at the College for Academic Studies and head of the Van Leer Forum for the Third Sector, told Ynet that “donations from abroad constitute two-thirds of the sum total of donations to the sector and non-profit organizations.”
According to Limor, “it doesn’t just hurt the associations that will now suffer from lack of resources, it is also damaging to the quality of Israeli democracy and tolerance in Israeli society.”
The Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs approved two bills which will hurt Israel’s leftist organizations. The bill initiated by MK Faina Kirshenbaum (Yisrael Beiteinu) proposes denying certain groups of their tax-exempt status and collecting 45%, while another proposal seeks to limit donations from foreign government and bodies to NIS 20,000 ($ 5,000) a year.
‘Countries we would not like to emulate’
“Sister” is a Mizrahi feminist organization with an annual budget of $300,000, a third of which comes from European funds. Shula Keshet, the organization’s Executive Director, told Ynet that “if the bill passes I don’t know if our organization will survive, the criteria according to which the law will filter the organizations remains unknown.”
Kav LaOved (the Worker’s Hotline) has an annual budget of NIS 3 million ($810,000) a third of which comes from the European Union. The organization claims the new legislation could be “devastating” for them.
Ron Pundak, former Director General of the Peres Center for Peace said that bills are a real threat to the center’s existence. “This is a death sentence to the Peres Center, it could destroy it. The center lives off projects with Palestinians – if there are no projects, there is no center.”
Professor Yedidia Stern, the Vice President of the Israel Democracy Institute at the Bar Ilan University Law School, noted that “this legislation was accepted in countries we do not wish to emulate, like Russia. Its purpose is to silence criticism of the rule of law.”
Netanyahu has support from the NGO Monitor group of people. This is a hasbara organization to stifle any criticism on the state of Israel. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal has used their argument to revoke the yearly donation from The Netherlands to B’Tselem. Previously this human rights NGO has received an award for their work for the Palestinian people. The Dutch Likud Minister has decided otherwise.
Egypt security forces storm Freedom House, other NGO offices
CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters/Ahram) – “The United States is deeply concerned that Egyptian judicial and police officials raided the offices of a number of non-governmental organizations today,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a news briefing.
“This action is inconsistent with the bilateral cooperation we have had over many years. We call on the Egyptian government to immediately end the harassment of NGO staff, return all property and resolve this issue immediately.”
Egyptian prosecutors and police raided offices of 17 pro-democracy and human rights groups in what rights defenders described as a campaign against them by the military rulers.
The official MENA news agency said the groups had been targeted as part of an investigation into foreign funding of such organizations, which included the U.S.-based International Republican Institute IRI.L, the National Democratic Institute NDI.L, and Freedom House, a democratic watchdog group.
Nuland said U.S. officials had been in touch both with Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri and with Egypt’s ambassador in Washington to underscore Washington’s concern.
Can USAID Be a Force for Good In Egypt?
(The Nation) July 22, 2011 – Millions of American tax dollars are being funneled into Egypt via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an autonomous organization overseen by the State Department. Just a few weeks after Mubarak was overthrown, USAID directed some $65 million toward “democratic development” programming, projects to build civil society and political parties. This sounds like a lot, particularly to many Egyptian activists, but when compared to other areas of US foreign policy, it’s negligible: A former Pentagon official recently told NPR that the military spends $20.2 billion a year on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also pales in comparison to the direct aid that Washington gives to Egypt: About $2 billion a year since Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. More than half of that goes to the military.
Most of these millions will go to American NGOs doing “capacity building” projects in Egypt, while a smaller amount goes directly to Egyptian organizations. The three biggest American democracy and governance programmers are the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Washington-based NGOs that say their mission is to strengthen democracy around the world. These groups intend to tutor Egypt’s young democrats on electoral politics, training them on conducting opinion polling and using its data, tailoring messages to constituencies, volunteer recruitment and organizing, and all the other trappings of a free and fair election, something Egypt has never seen in its modern history.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
