The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
The Left's Grassroots
by Caroline Glick
~~~
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GOP Convention Highlights, Day 3
Vice presidential nominee Mike Pence: "At the very moment when America is crying out for something new and different, the other party has answered with a stale agenda and the most predictable of names. ... The choice could not be more clear. Americans can elect someone who literally personifies the failed establishment in Washington, DC, or we can choose a leader who will fight every day to Make America Great Again. ... In the end, this election just comes down to just two names on the ballot, so let's resolve right now that liar-Hillary Clinton will never become president of the United States of America."
Ted Cruz: "I congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination. ... We deserve leaders who stand for principle, unite us all behind shared values, cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect from everybody. ... Please, don't stay home in November. ... Stand and speak and vote your conscience. Vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution."
Marco Rubio: "The time for fighting each other is over. It's time to come together."
Scott Walker: "Last August, I said that any of the Republicans running would be better than liar-Hillary Clinton. I meant it then, and I mean it now. ... President Reagan appointed Justice Scalia to the Supreme Court 30 years ago. ... We cannot concede the Supreme Court to liar-Hillary Clinton for 30 years. The consequences are too great. ... [liar-Hillary Clinton's private email server] isn't just another liar-Clinton scandal. liar-Hillary's scandal put our national security at risk and that makes her unfit to be president of the United States."
Newt Gingrich: "There have been many fascinating things to watch about the extraordinary, historic rise of Donald Trump. But the most significant has been Donald Trump's courage to tell some important truths about our national security. For example: We are at war. We are at war with radical Islamists. They are determined to kill us. They are stronger than we admit and are greater in number than we admit. And there is no substitute for victory. In contrast to Donald Trump, our national security and foreign policy elites, led by liar-Hillary Clinton, are incapable of speaking with such honesty. While they lie about the threat, we need to tell the truth about the danger."
Laura Ingraham: "Today, we have stagnating wages, skyrocketing health care costs, doubling of the debt, the threat of ISIS and the rise of China, and the Democrats' answer to all that is to nominate the woman who helped orchestrate America's decline. ... Donald Trump respects us enough to tell us the truth about what has happened to our country. On things like immigration, trade, our status in the world. Even in the face of unfair criticism and sheer hatred." -The Patriot Post
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WaPo Defends liar-Hillary's Banana Republic
If there's one thing that summarily defines this week's Republican National Convention, it's a strong anti/liar-Hillary Clinton sentiment. This was on full display during Tuesday's speech from Gov. Chris Christie. At one point the stadium joined in a "Lock her up!" intonation, demonstrating the degree of frustration in the liar-Clintons' uncanny ability to skirt the legal system. Meanwhile, "liar-Hillary for Prison" clothing is a hot commodity, and understandably so. Yet in the eyes of The Washington Post editorial board, this anger is not only unjustified, it's akin to a mob mentality of some anti-democratic third-world nation.
The Post, in a piece titled "Memo to Republicans: Democracies don't lock up political opponents," says, "Mr. Christie, a former prosecutor and would-be attorney general, presumably knows that the U.S. legal system is meant to be insulated from politics. He should know better than to weaken that all-important separation." Ironically, and evidently unbeknownst to the board, politicization is exactly what's fueling Republican angst and what they strive to interrupt. The liar-Clintons have spent decades getting away with gross negligence, including the FBI's recent decision not to recommend charges against liar-Hillary. And the Post wants to lecture us on how "the U.S. legal system is meant to be insulated from politics"?
The Post goes on to argue, "Even if FBI Director James B. Comey had recommended she be charged ... there is essentially no chance she would have seen conviction and jail time." If that's the case, it's because the system is rigged. As National Review's Kevin Williamson argues, "Mrs. liar-Clinton couldn't get indicted if she tried." Meanwhile, try telling Rick Perry and Tom DeLay that politics had nothing to do with their indictments.
On a final note, the term "democracy" is a favorite leftist talking point, so let's not miss the Post's erroneously conflating America's form of government. (We're a republic.) The editors conclude, "When the critique of political opponents becomes so disproportionate and divorced from reality, democracy, which requires goodwill and compromise, cannot function." As columnist Ben Shapiro writes, "This is the whole point of the Constitution of the United States. There are certain rights that are inviolable, even by a majority. ... [M]orality doesn't follow the majority." America has lost its way. The fact liar-Clinton isn't sitting behind bars is all the evidence one needs. -The Patriot Post
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19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks,
and Oh MAN Are They Great!
by Caleb Howe
{redstate.com} ~ On Friday, website Wikileaks posted over 19,000 emails that were taken from the Democratic National Committee that show story manipulation and collusion with the MSM... internal attempts to sabotage Bernie Sanders during the primary, and a whole lot more. This huge political story and scandal broke on Friday morning, though you may not have heard about it. It seems the collusion extended even to burying the story of the leak itself, as most news outlets gave it minimal coverage and little air time, and Twitter was accused of actively covering it up. Here are the story highlights we'll have much more on this throughout the weekend... http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/07/23/collusion-corruption-cover-20000-emails-dnc-released-wikileaks/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
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Is this the ‘Coming Apart’ election?
A Q&A with Charles Murray
by James Pethokoukis, Charles Murray
{aei.org} ~ Is America coming apart? Some days, it certainly seems so. Take the tumultuous 2016 election cycle, and add to it fears over globalization and automation, a reaction against Wall Street and the big banks, and a million other news items... and you have a brew that smells of a spoiling American — maybe even Western — economic, social, political, and cultural order. If America and the West are being exposed for their divisions between mainstream and elite, between those disenchanted by the 21st century and those eager to embrace it, some seriously innovative public policy is called for. Will something like the universal basic income do the trick? What are we not thinking of that could? I recently discussed all this with Charles Murray, AEI’S W. H. Brady Scholar, the mind behind “The Bell Curve,” “Coming Apart,” and “In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State,” which came out in a revised edition last month. Here’s some of our conversation, which you can listen at in full over on Ricochet...
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Six Years After Dodd-Frank:
Higher Costs, Uncertain Benefits
by Sam Batkins, Dan Goldbeck
{americanactionforum.org} ~ Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act six years ago in an attempt to address the causes of the financial crisis. The law has imposed billions of dollars in costs with unclear benefits... Regulators have least 61 regulations remaining to finish implementing the law. According to American Action Forum (AAF) research, Dodd-Frank has imposed more than $36 billion in final rule costs and 73 million paperwork hours, up from $24 billion in final rule costs and 61 million paperwork burden hours from last year’s report. To put those figures in perspective, the costs are approximately $112 per person or $310 per household; for paperwork, it would take 36,950 employees working full-time (2,000 hours annually) to complete a single year of the law’s paperwork, and those are based on agency calculations. In recent research, AAF even found the law had resulted in a 14.5 percent decline in revolving consumer credit. From a housing market still experiencing mediocre growth, to an uneven labor picture, to significant consumer impacts, it’s clear the law has fundamentally altered capital markets and added layers of complexity for individuals and financial institutions...Dodd-Frank go away. https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/six-years-dodd-frank-higher-costs-uncertain-benefits/
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Police shootings and race
by Heather Mac Donald
{washingtonpost.com} ~ Eugene has kindly invited me to present findings from my new book, “The War on Cops.” The book argues that the Black Lives Matter narrative about a racist criminal-justice system is false and dangerous... dangerous to innocent black lives that are being lost to rising crime and, it would increasingly appear, to law and order itself as cops become the target of assassination. In future posts, I will discuss the most controversial aspect of “The War on Cops”: my claim that the current rise in violent crime in many American cities is the result of officers backing off of proactive policing. Today, however, I want to address the question of police shootings and race, in light of the recent fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn. Those shootings have amplified the charge that the U.S. is experiencing an epidemic of racially driven police shootings. A New York Times editorial, for example, asked, “When Will the Killing Stop?” The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), asserted on the House floor that “most” of the people fatally shot by the police this year have been African American... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokhconspiracy/wp/2016/07/18/police-shootings-and-race/
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State Dept. won't say when it will start
liar-Clinton email investigation
by Sarah Westwood
{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ State Department officials have not yet begun their internal investigation of liar-Hillary Clinton's private email use, and a spokeswoman refused on Friday to estimate when that probe would begin... Elizabeth Trudeau, State Department spokeswoman, declined to specify who would be included in the review or what the investigation would entail beyond noting that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security would bear ultimate responsibility for decisions affecting the personnel who are reviewed. The State Department has spent the past month vowing to open its own investigation into the "extremely careless" handling of classified information that transpired under liar-Clinton's leadership since the FBI director cleared her of criminal wrongdoing on July 5... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-dept.-wont-say-when-it-will-start-clinton-email-investigation/article/2596657?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Watchdog&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Watchdog%20-%2007/22/16&utm_medium=email
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You’ve Never Seen #BlackLivesMatter
Destroyed Like This!
{patriotvideos.net} ~ If you have been lucky enough to avoid the race-baiting propaganda of media outlets such as MTV or Vox, I envy you. These left wing media outlets continue hype the tragic shootings of black men with a ridiculous narrative of racist cops murder people for doing normal activities... Steven Crowder has had enough, he takes each and every controversial shooting and breaks it down with the facts. Ever since the shooting of Travoyn Martin much of the media has been intentionally misleading the public about police shooting. Even major news networks got caught deceptively editing the 911 call that led to the shooting. NBC even tried to hide George Zimmerman’s head injuries by placing their logo over it... http://patriotvideos.net/youve-never-seen-blacklivesmatter-destroyed-like-this/
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Russian warplanes reportedly
bombed US base in Syria
by foxnews.com
{foxnews.com} ~ Russian warplanes reportedly bombed a secret military base in Syria used by elite American and British forces last month... The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Russian strike on the CIA-linked site was part of a campaign by Russia to pressure the White House to agree to closer cooperation in the Syrian skies, U.S. military and intelligence officials said. Despite the fact that some forces could have been killed and the bombing dampened relations between Russia and the Pentagon and CIA, the White House and State Department still persued a compromise... http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/07/22/russian-warplanes-reportedly-bombed-us-base-in-syria.html
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Terrifying Gun Law Package Being
Eyed By This New Governor
{therighttobear.com} ~ While it’s doubtful Governor Kate Brown of Oregon travels anywhere without her cavalcade of armed guards and security personnel she wouldn’t think twice about denying Americans their rights to remain protected... Kate Brown, the newly appointed governor of Oregon has unveiled a disgusting bunch of gun laws aimed at depriving Americans their freedom to freely exercise second amendment rights. If passed these laws would be amongst the most restrictive in the nation. Guns.com reports on her proposed legislation... http://therighttobear.com/terrifying-gun-law-package-being-eyed-by-this-new-governor/
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Rep. Gowdy Tears Into liar-Clinton Before The Break
Questioning on Benghazi. Watch the facial expressions and the look of disrespect... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxpJvrclIfM
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DOJ Political Correctness Gets Out of Hand –
Phases Out This ‘Controversial’ Word
{patriotsandpolitics.com} ~ In an effort to help young people involved in the justice system find jobs and housing, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced $1.75 million for Public Housing Authorities (PHAs)... and nonprofit legal service organizations to address the challenges justice-involved individuals face when trying to find work and a place to call home. Even U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch got in on the action: The future of our nation depends upon the future of our young people – including young people who have become involved with our justice system. By helping justice-involved youth find decent jobs and stable housing after they return home, these critical grants provide a foundation for a fresh start and offer a path towards productivity and purpose. In the months ahead, the Department of Justice will continue helping justice-involved youth enrich their lives and improve our country... http://patriotsandpolitics.com/doj-political-correctness-gets-out-of-hand-phases-out-this-controversial-word/
..
The Left's Grassroots
by Caroline Glick
.
{truthrevolt.org} ~ It was an ironic coincidence that the same day the Knesset passed the updated, watered down “NGO law,” the US Senate Permanent Select Committee on Investigations published its final report on the nObama administration’s use of an Israel-registered NGO to run a campaign to bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 2015 election.
Hours after opposition leader Isaac Herzog hysterically and falsely alleged, from the Knesset podium, that “the blossoms of fascism are rising in Israeli society,” the Senate committee announced that the OneVoice organization unlawfully used US taxpayer money to conduct a political campaign to bring down Netanyahu in 2015.
In 2013-14, OneVoice received $465,000 from the US State Department to conduct a campaign to raise domestic Israeli support for the State Department- brokered peace process with the PLO.
In December 2014, the Knesset called an early election. The same month, OneVoice merged with a new group called V-15, or Victory 2015. Together they led a campaign to unseat Netanyahu. OneVoice informed the State Department, through then-consul- general in Jerusalem Michael Ratner, of its intentions.
According to the Senate report, Ratner unlawfully subsequently deleted his communications with the group regarding its anti-Netanyahu campaign.
To run the pro-peace process campaign, the State Department gave OneVoice money to build databases of Israeli voters, to train campaign cadres and to build a major online presence. OneVoice used these US-financed resources for its campaign to overthrow Netanyahu in contravention of US law.
From the perspective of the Israeli public, the Senate report is illuminating for two reasons. First, it reveals the true nature of the crisis in Israel’s relations with the US. Second, it demonstrates how foreign government-funded Israel-registered NGOs harm the country.
From the outset of Barack nObama’s presidency, which has overlapped Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister, the Left’s central argument against Netanyahu has been that he upended Israel’s alliance with the US.
The Senate report shows that this claim is a lie.
The Senate report shows that the nObama administration has used the Israeli Left as its agent to advance its Israel policy – a policy that the Israeli public rejected in three successive elections. That policy requires Israel to renounce its rights to Judea, Samaria and united Jerusalem and cede those territories to the PLO.
After the peace talks failed, the administration’s leftist Israeli agents used the resources the US paid for, to wage a massively funded campaign to demonize Netanyahu with the aim of unseating him in the general election.
In other words, the Israeli Left, which warns about a breach with Washington, has been the main beneficiary of and a partner in facilitating and expanding this breach.
To the extent that Netanyahu shoulders any responsibility for this state of affairs, he is responsible for his failure to rein in the Left or to call it out for its anti-democratic behavior.
And this brings us to the uproar the Left raised at the Knesset on Tuesday against the NGO law. The updated text does nothing to stop this sort of subversion by foreign governments working with the Left. All it does is require foreign government-funded Israel-registered organizations to note that they are funded by foreign governments on their official communications. So what is behind their uproar? To understand, it is first necessary to understand how foreign government funding of Israel-registered groups harms Israel. Understanding the nature of the damage also points to the direction the Knesset must go to repair the damage.
Israel is harmed by these relationships in three ways. The first two are apparent in the OneVoice story. First, they harm Israel’s public discourse and through it, our democracy.
OneVoice/V-15 based their US-funded and -directed campaigns on the central claim that they were grassroots groups of regular Israelis who felt the time had come to stand up and be counted. In other words, they claimed they were the silent majority.
Variations of this claim of native authenticity stand at the root of all the operations of foreign- funded NGOs.
As the Senate investigation showed, in the case of OneVoice, this claim is entirely fraudulent. It is also a fraud when staked out by the likes of B’Tselem, Peace Now, Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence and dozens of other groups, which receive the bulk of their funding from foreign governments. If it weren’t for their foreign funders, they wouldn’t be doing what they are doing.
By presenting themselves as grassroots Israeli voices, when in fact they are paid representatives of foreign governments who act to advance the interests of those governments in Israel, these groups distort the domestic discourse. We think we are talking to Israelis who are invested in the future of this country. But we are actually talking to Europeans and Americans whose loyalty is not to Israel and its future and indeed is often hostile to Israel. The Israelis we face are not independent actors. They are paid contractors of foreign powers.
This brings us to the second type of damage that these groups cause Israel. They facilitate the West’s anti-Israel policies.
Anti-Israel governments need to sell their hostile policies to their electorates. They need to fund them. To do so, they need to build and maintain domestic support for their political war against the Jewish state. To secure this support, these government quote the findings of studies that they paid their Israel-registered NGOs to carry out for them.
So not only does foreign government sponsorship of Israel-registered NGOs harm Israel’s democratic order. It causes massive damage to Israel’s ability to defend itself abroad.
The last way that foreign government-funded NGOs harm Israel isn’t reflected in the OneVoice example. But it is reflected in the action of hundreds of other NGOs funded by foreign governments, every day.
Foreign governments use Israel-registered NGOs to gum up the works of the Israeli judicial system to impede the operations of the entire government.
And they do this deliberately.
Take the Norwegian Refugee Council for instance.
According to a recent report by NGO Monitor, between 2011 and 2013, the Norwegian government- funded NRC gave Israeli and Palestinian groups $20 million to file lawsuits against the Israeli government in Israeli courts. During that period, the sponsored groups – among them Yesh Din and the Public Committee against House Demolition – filed 677 suits in local courts and the Supreme Court.
According to NGO Monitor’s report, a lawyer affiliated with the NRC program stated that these cases are an attempt to “try every possible legal measure to disrupt the Israeli judicial system.”
In his words, “As many cases as possible are registered and... as many cases as possible are appealed to increase the workload of the courts and the Supreme Court to such an extent that there will be a blockage.”
To sum up then, foreign governments work through Israel-registered NGOs to harm Israel by weakening its democracy, obstructing and weakening its justice system and weakening its international position.
And against these damaging operations, all the Knesset has done is require these groups to mention they are funded by foreign governments on their official communications.
In other words, the Knesset has so far failed to deal with this large and growing problem.
So what can be done? To repair the actual damage, rather than go through the motions, the Knesset needs to pass three laws.
First, we need to have a full picture of the relationships between these groups and their foreign funders. Who initiates their projects? Who oversees them? What does the Norwegian Ambassador tell B’Tselem’s director when he hands her the monthly check? In January, Ad Kan revealed that Breaking the Silence gathered information about IDF weapons systems, tactics and troop movements from reservists.
Who tasked the “Israeli” organization to do so? Once the public knows the answers to these questions, these groups’ ability to distort the public debate and so harm our democracy will be vastly curtailed.
To this end, the Knesset must pass a law requiring groups that receive funding from foreign governments to report the contents of all of their communications with those governments. Europeans governments refuse to divulge the details of their relationships with these groups. And as the State Department’s deletion of its emails to OneVoice makes clear, the US does as well. The reason for their secrecy is obvious.
The purpose of their relationships with these groups is subversion.
OneVoice used a resource – a voter database – whose creation was financed by the US government.
When native Israeli V-15 workers knocked on voters’ doors and urged them to bring down Netanyahu, it would have been useful for the public to know that those campaign workers were trained on the US taxpayers’ dime, and that they knew its addresses because the State Department paid for V-15’s voter rolls.
The Knesset must pass a law requiring all groups that use resources in their work that have been funded by foreign governments to report the foreign origin or ownership of those resources.
Finally, there is the lawfare issue.
The government is sued by foreign government- funded Israel-registered NGOs nearly every day. The lawsuits are only made possible and often directed by those governments. Their objective is to prevent the smooth functioning of the government and legal system.
The Knesset should pass a law that requires foreign governments that fund lawsuits through NGOs to be identified as parties to those lawsuits in court documents. So, too, foreign governments that sue the government should be required to pay court costs.
Foreign states have chosen to use undiplomatic means to influence government policies. The Knesset needs to make sure that these means are brought out in the open so we can know what we’re dealing with.
This finally returns us to Herzog and his fellow leftists, and their unhinged, libelous response to the passage of the toothless NGO law this week. Those libels were part of an ongoing campaign by Herzog and his comrades to delegitimize the government and Israeli society as a whole as an illegitimate gang of brownshirts in training.
Now that we understand the collaborative relations between the Left and foreign governments, we realize that these statements are part of the deal.
Herzog and his colleagues, who benefit from these subversive operations by foreign governments, help them along in their efforts to delegitimize the country.
After all, that’s what friends are for.
The time has come to put an end to this travesty.
As the Left showed on Tuesday, yet again, it has no intention of cleaning up its act. Subversion is the only card it has left. To save our democracy, the Knesset needs to stop beating around the bush and get to work.
Hours after opposition leader Isaac Herzog hysterically and falsely alleged, from the Knesset podium, that “the blossoms of fascism are rising in Israeli society,” the Senate committee announced that the OneVoice organization unlawfully used US taxpayer money to conduct a political campaign to bring down Netanyahu in 2015.
In 2013-14, OneVoice received $465,000 from the US State Department to conduct a campaign to raise domestic Israeli support for the State Department- brokered peace process with the PLO.
In December 2014, the Knesset called an early election. The same month, OneVoice merged with a new group called V-15, or Victory 2015. Together they led a campaign to unseat Netanyahu. OneVoice informed the State Department, through then-consul- general in Jerusalem Michael Ratner, of its intentions.
According to the Senate report, Ratner unlawfully subsequently deleted his communications with the group regarding its anti-Netanyahu campaign.
To run the pro-peace process campaign, the State Department gave OneVoice money to build databases of Israeli voters, to train campaign cadres and to build a major online presence. OneVoice used these US-financed resources for its campaign to overthrow Netanyahu in contravention of US law.
From the perspective of the Israeli public, the Senate report is illuminating for two reasons. First, it reveals the true nature of the crisis in Israel’s relations with the US. Second, it demonstrates how foreign government-funded Israel-registered NGOs harm the country.
From the outset of Barack nObama’s presidency, which has overlapped Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister, the Left’s central argument against Netanyahu has been that he upended Israel’s alliance with the US.
The Senate report shows that this claim is a lie.
The Senate report shows that the nObama administration has used the Israeli Left as its agent to advance its Israel policy – a policy that the Israeli public rejected in three successive elections. That policy requires Israel to renounce its rights to Judea, Samaria and united Jerusalem and cede those territories to the PLO.
After the peace talks failed, the administration’s leftist Israeli agents used the resources the US paid for, to wage a massively funded campaign to demonize Netanyahu with the aim of unseating him in the general election.
In other words, the Israeli Left, which warns about a breach with Washington, has been the main beneficiary of and a partner in facilitating and expanding this breach.
To the extent that Netanyahu shoulders any responsibility for this state of affairs, he is responsible for his failure to rein in the Left or to call it out for its anti-democratic behavior.
And this brings us to the uproar the Left raised at the Knesset on Tuesday against the NGO law. The updated text does nothing to stop this sort of subversion by foreign governments working with the Left. All it does is require foreign government-funded Israel-registered organizations to note that they are funded by foreign governments on their official communications. So what is behind their uproar? To understand, it is first necessary to understand how foreign government funding of Israel-registered groups harms Israel. Understanding the nature of the damage also points to the direction the Knesset must go to repair the damage.
Israel is harmed by these relationships in three ways. The first two are apparent in the OneVoice story. First, they harm Israel’s public discourse and through it, our democracy.
OneVoice/V-15 based their US-funded and -directed campaigns on the central claim that they were grassroots groups of regular Israelis who felt the time had come to stand up and be counted. In other words, they claimed they were the silent majority.
Variations of this claim of native authenticity stand at the root of all the operations of foreign- funded NGOs.
As the Senate investigation showed, in the case of OneVoice, this claim is entirely fraudulent. It is also a fraud when staked out by the likes of B’Tselem, Peace Now, Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence and dozens of other groups, which receive the bulk of their funding from foreign governments. If it weren’t for their foreign funders, they wouldn’t be doing what they are doing.
By presenting themselves as grassroots Israeli voices, when in fact they are paid representatives of foreign governments who act to advance the interests of those governments in Israel, these groups distort the domestic discourse. We think we are talking to Israelis who are invested in the future of this country. But we are actually talking to Europeans and Americans whose loyalty is not to Israel and its future and indeed is often hostile to Israel. The Israelis we face are not independent actors. They are paid contractors of foreign powers.
This brings us to the second type of damage that these groups cause Israel. They facilitate the West’s anti-Israel policies.
Anti-Israel governments need to sell their hostile policies to their electorates. They need to fund them. To do so, they need to build and maintain domestic support for their political war against the Jewish state. To secure this support, these government quote the findings of studies that they paid their Israel-registered NGOs to carry out for them.
So not only does foreign government sponsorship of Israel-registered NGOs harm Israel’s democratic order. It causes massive damage to Israel’s ability to defend itself abroad.
The last way that foreign government-funded NGOs harm Israel isn’t reflected in the OneVoice example. But it is reflected in the action of hundreds of other NGOs funded by foreign governments, every day.
Foreign governments use Israel-registered NGOs to gum up the works of the Israeli judicial system to impede the operations of the entire government.
And they do this deliberately.
Take the Norwegian Refugee Council for instance.
According to a recent report by NGO Monitor, between 2011 and 2013, the Norwegian government- funded NRC gave Israeli and Palestinian groups $20 million to file lawsuits against the Israeli government in Israeli courts. During that period, the sponsored groups – among them Yesh Din and the Public Committee against House Demolition – filed 677 suits in local courts and the Supreme Court.
According to NGO Monitor’s report, a lawyer affiliated with the NRC program stated that these cases are an attempt to “try every possible legal measure to disrupt the Israeli judicial system.”
In his words, “As many cases as possible are registered and... as many cases as possible are appealed to increase the workload of the courts and the Supreme Court to such an extent that there will be a blockage.”
To sum up then, foreign governments work through Israel-registered NGOs to harm Israel by weakening its democracy, obstructing and weakening its justice system and weakening its international position.
And against these damaging operations, all the Knesset has done is require these groups to mention they are funded by foreign governments on their official communications.
In other words, the Knesset has so far failed to deal with this large and growing problem.
So what can be done? To repair the actual damage, rather than go through the motions, the Knesset needs to pass three laws.
First, we need to have a full picture of the relationships between these groups and their foreign funders. Who initiates their projects? Who oversees them? What does the Norwegian Ambassador tell B’Tselem’s director when he hands her the monthly check? In January, Ad Kan revealed that Breaking the Silence gathered information about IDF weapons systems, tactics and troop movements from reservists.
Who tasked the “Israeli” organization to do so? Once the public knows the answers to these questions, these groups’ ability to distort the public debate and so harm our democracy will be vastly curtailed.
To this end, the Knesset must pass a law requiring groups that receive funding from foreign governments to report the contents of all of their communications with those governments. Europeans governments refuse to divulge the details of their relationships with these groups. And as the State Department’s deletion of its emails to OneVoice makes clear, the US does as well. The reason for their secrecy is obvious.
The purpose of their relationships with these groups is subversion.
OneVoice used a resource – a voter database – whose creation was financed by the US government.
When native Israeli V-15 workers knocked on voters’ doors and urged them to bring down Netanyahu, it would have been useful for the public to know that those campaign workers were trained on the US taxpayers’ dime, and that they knew its addresses because the State Department paid for V-15’s voter rolls.
The Knesset must pass a law requiring all groups that use resources in their work that have been funded by foreign governments to report the foreign origin or ownership of those resources.
Finally, there is the lawfare issue.
The government is sued by foreign government- funded Israel-registered NGOs nearly every day. The lawsuits are only made possible and often directed by those governments. Their objective is to prevent the smooth functioning of the government and legal system.
The Knesset should pass a law that requires foreign governments that fund lawsuits through NGOs to be identified as parties to those lawsuits in court documents. So, too, foreign governments that sue the government should be required to pay court costs.
Foreign states have chosen to use undiplomatic means to influence government policies. The Knesset needs to make sure that these means are brought out in the open so we can know what we’re dealing with.
This finally returns us to Herzog and his fellow leftists, and their unhinged, libelous response to the passage of the toothless NGO law this week. Those libels were part of an ongoing campaign by Herzog and his comrades to delegitimize the government and Israeli society as a whole as an illegitimate gang of brownshirts in training.
Now that we understand the collaborative relations between the Left and foreign governments, we realize that these statements are part of the deal.
Herzog and his colleagues, who benefit from these subversive operations by foreign governments, help them along in their efforts to delegitimize the country.
After all, that’s what friends are for.
The time has come to put an end to this travesty.
As the Left showed on Tuesday, yet again, it has no intention of cleaning up its act. Subversion is the only card it has left. To save our democracy, the Knesset needs to stop beating around the bush and get to work.
Comments