There’s plenty of blame to go around for October 7 and there is no question many in Israel have many questions to answer.
But since October 8th in the Diaspora, there are legacy Jewish organizations who had long pushed programs which aren’t good for the Jews and who continued to push radical extremist liberal ideas on Israel from the Diaspora. And those who have endangered or at the very least, failed to protect, the Jewish people in the Diaspora have no business importing their ideas to the Jewish state.
Against that backdrop comes news that “Dozens of Jewish donors sign letter denouncing the new NGO bill, a proposed law which would impose an 80% tax on donations received from foreign political entities.” These donors say that it’s a “‘dangerous, undemocratic’ Israeli bill targeting foreign-funded nonprofits.”
Who are they to come to Israel and make demands of the Jewish state after they failed miserably at countering the many nonprofits in the Diaspora tormenting Jews worldwide?
Sir Mick Davis - of the UK, now a dangerous country for Jews - said about the NGO bill, “It’s a piece of legislation itself, which I think is not the sort of legislation that you want to see in a democratic country because it grants powers of exclusion to politicians in power, which can be used in very negative ways.”
Davis, however, has long attacked the Netanyahu government, saying that “15 years of almost uninterrupted Netanyahu governments have represented an increasingly unbridled assault on all the essential elements” of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. It has been “a deeply painful and destructive period that has tarnished Zionism, with the current government being the most distressing and damaging to-date. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which includes outspoken and proudly racist, expansionist, messianic, homophobic and misogynistic elements - elements he has legitimised at the heart of Israeli politics - has not revised its ambitions.”
At least the Israeli government, whether he agrees with those elected democratically by a majority of Israeli voters or excoriates them, protects Jews.
Davis and his colleagues have left Jews unprotected in the Diaspora with their failed policies, and now expect Israel to listen to them. Why don’t they focus on the many terrorist non profits in the Diaspora which are harming Israel and the Jews? Why do they feel the need to interfere in the running of the Jewish state?
Among the other signatures to this letter are Sally Gottesman, a major donor to the radical extremist New Israel Fund.
These Diaspora Jewish leaders intervened in Israeli politics by asking Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to “do what you can to scrap this cynical, dangerous and undemocratic bill.”
Davis said that “he decided to address the letter to the foreign minister — and to the Israeli ambassadors to the signers’ home countries — as opposed to MK Kallner, the bill’s sponsor, or any other legislator, from a belief that the NGO bill would damage Israel’s standing abroad. “Because we think this impacts Israel standing internationally, the most appropriate minister to send it to was the minister of foreign affairs,” he said.
Mr. Davis and fellow Jewish leaders, read this carefully: What harms Israel worldwide is all those on the left who refuse to recognize Israel’s voters and respect their opinions. The people of Ariel, and Netivot, and Lod and Ashkelon, Jerusalem and Efrat, are those who elected Netanyahu, Smotrich and this government. Their voices matter more than Jews in the Diaspora who should be fighting to keep their children safe on college campuses, instead of opposing Trump's efforts to cleanse those campuses of genocidal antisemites.
The Jews of the UK and the rest of the Diaspora haven’t succeeded even minimally in stopping the funding of jihadi nonprofits in the Diaspora - and those nonprofits' antisemitic activities as well as Qatari takeovers of college campuses - why do they feel the need to do so in the Jewish state?
As Likud MK Ariel Kallner the sponsor of the bill said, “NGOs that do not engage in lobbying, public campaigns, or influencing policy will be excluded from the law. The bill is intended to prevent foreign states from meddling in Israeli politics by funding NGOs that defend terrorists, slander IDF soldiers, assist illegal infiltration, and harm the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.”
In other words, those foreigners who seek to harm the nationalist government and harm the Jewish identify of the State of Israel will no longer be able to do so with impunity. What fault can one find with that?
Ronn Torossianis Vice Chairman of Betar Worldwide.