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[Excerpt:]

“Last February, Parliament passed a law requiring Israeli groups to report quarterly on which foreign governments were donating to them. A group that campaigned for that law, NGO Monitor, said its concern was that European governments were supporting political activities in Israel without accountability. Gerald Steinberg, the group’s president, said, however, that he opposed the two new bills under consideration. He added that he suspected they would not survive. “This is mostly domestic politics,” he said, noting that the public is upset over foreign government support for the left here and that Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party was locking horns with Yisrael Beiteinu, the nationalist party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, to harness that anger. “My gut is that Netanyahu will realize that this does damage to Israel’s image and feeds tension with the Europeans,” Mr. Steinberg said. “Transparency is the main issue.” He said that European governments spend more per year on left-wing Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups than their total contributions to nonprofit human rights groups in other countries in the Middle East. “We estimate that together, this amounts to between $75 and $100 million from European governments to Israeli and Palestinian groups annually, far exceeding funding for human rights and democracy organizations in the rest of the region,” he said. In addition to Gisha, about 15 other Israeli groups rely heavily on European aid, including Breaking the Silence, which focuses on abuses by Israeli troops, and Physicians for Human Rights, Israel.”