MK Tzipi Hotovely
MK Tzipi HotovelyNissim Lev

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called Monday to suspend connections with the Minerva Center for Human rights at the Hebrew University.

According to Hotovely, this is due to “cooperation between the center and a group of anti-Israel organizations, like the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Gisha, B’Tselem, Hamoked: Center for The Defense of the Individual, Bimkom, Emek Shaveh and others".

Hotovely claims these organizations have a record of ignoring the human rights of Jews, adding that "most of them are involved in anti-Israel activity and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs won’t cooperate with organizations that slander Israel every chance they get."

She also called for the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be removed immediately from the Minerva Center for Human Rights' website, which lists the Ministry as one of its sponsors.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has never supported this organization, which under the guise of academia, advances a political agenda along with radical organizations,” Hotovely said.

A large number of radical leftist and anti-Zionist NGOs operate in Israel under the guise of human rights organizations, often funded by European countries and the New Israel Fund. NGO Monitor, an organization that investigates NGO operations, says that its mission is to "end the practice used by certain self-declared 'humanitarian NGOs' of exploiting the label 'universal human rights values' to promote politically and ideologically motivated agendas"