Green groups petition High Court to enforce NIS 11 million government funding pledge

The environmental advocacy organization Adam Teva V’Din and Knesset member Yorai Lahav-Hertzano filed a petition to the High Court on Monday demanding enforcement of a January decision to award green groups NIS 11 million ($3.24 million), which the Environmental Protection Minister, Idit Silman, has failed to honor.

The board of the Cleanup Fund, an independent statutory body, awarded the sum.

The Environmental Protection Ministry under Silman has claimed the decision will not be implemented because of “budgetary constraints,” a reason Adam Teva V’Din charges is “groundless and legally unfounded.”

The petition states, “The position of the relevant regulatory authorities makes it clear unequivocally that there is no budgetary limitation for the implementation of the fund management’s decision and that the necessary budget exists and is fully available.”

Bar Rozov, head of Adam Teva’s legal department, explained: “The Cleanup Fund is managed as a separate, dedicated budget, by an independent statutory body. (This is) a structure designed to ensure that public funds are managed in professional, transparent hands, and independent of changing political considerations. This is not Minister Silman’s ‘pocket money,’ but money that is supposed to be used for environmental purposes for which it was designated. The minister and her office have no authority to deviate from a valid and binding decision of the fund’s management; their role is purely executive, and they lack discretion.”

The Cleanup Fund, established in 1984 and financed by sources such as landfill fees and plastic bag levies, is used to maintain the country’s cleanliness, for example, by preventing the illegal treatment or dumping of waste, promoting recycling, and keeping trash off beaches.

Cash left over by the end of each year is distributed wholly or in part to help fund environmental organizations the following year.

Minutes of a Cleanup Fund meeting on January 21 show that the board approved NIS 11 million (down from NIS 14 million, or $4.1 million, in 2024) in grants for green organizations, for activities such as seminars and conferences, employee and volunteer training, curriculum development, and website development.

However, four months later, on May 15, the groups received an email from the Environmental Protection Ministry saying it would not issue a call for grant proposals this year “due to budget constraints.”

On June 6, the ministry’s deputy director general for Planning Affairs, Stilian Gelberg, told a Knesset Internal Affairs and Environmental Protection Committee meeting that the ministry had expected to fund the green organizations from a different source, which was never transferred, and that it needed to change its priorities to ensure cash for core issues.

Contradicting him, the Finance Ministry’s Ido Mor stated to the committee that there was “no budgetary issue here. The decision of the Cleanup Fund to approve a sum of NIS 11 million is not the ministry’s pocket money,” he said. He explained that the fund’s management was independently responsible for deciding where to allocate funds, adding that there had been no cuts in the ministry’s budget since January. “There are plans, but no binding decision has been made. And there was no discussion on reprioritizing the funds,” he said.

Neither Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman nor her director general, Rami Rozen, attended the committee meeting.

A statement from the Environmental Protection Ministry said the need had arisen to “focus priorities in the fund’s budget allocations,” especially in light of the needs of the country’s north and south in the light of the Swords of Iron war.

It added that the Cleanup Fund’s management had decided to conduct a “broad and informed” review of decisions it had made that had not yet been implemented, “to focus priorities in the foundation’s budget allocations, taking into account national priorities.”

Knesset Environmental Lobby chairman Lahav-Hertzano (Yesh Atid) accused Silman of being “against the environment.”

He went on, “Silman is stifling environmental organizations and harming the public. Instead of fighting pollution, she is fighting those who are protecting us from it. Without authority and contrary to the law, she is canceling a decision…. just to garner more votes in the Likud primaries.”

Several posts on a Likud party WhatsApp group earlier this year congratulated the minister for halting the flow of the NIS 11 million, describing the green groups as “radical left-wing organizations.” One message read, “Citizens’ tax money will no longer be used as a secret source for extreme political activity.”

In petitioning the court, Adam Teva V’Din also represented Life and Environment, the umbrella organization for the country’s green nonprofits.