Green NGOs appeal to attorney general against environment minister’s refusal to release funds

More than two dozen environmental organizations appealed to the Attorney General on Wednesday to compel Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman to distribute NIS 11 million approved for their activities by the management of a fund.

The Cleanup Fund, established in 1984 and funded from 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 one 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 that the board approved NIS 11 million, or $3.3 million (down from NIS 14 million, or $4.2 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 NGOs 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, that 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 11 million shekels 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 the Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman nor her Director General, Rami Rozen, attended the committee meeting.

Elad Hochman, CEO of Green Course, an organization of volunteers, students and youth, and one of the signatory organizations to the letter, explained to the Times of Israel that while the Environmental Protection Ministry controlled the Cleanup Fund by nominating the chairperson and a majority of the board’s members, the fund itself operated as a “closed economy,” with income from the various levies. This was separate, he said, from the ministry’s own budget, which was determined annually by the government.

The grants were awarded not to organizations, but to projects the ministry regarded as important, he further clarified. It was the ministry that determined the type of projects and the criteria on which organizations would be invited to submit grant proposals.

“It was during this [latter] process that the Environmental Protection Minister said she didn’t want to publish the call for submissions, saying there was no budget,” Hochman continued. “But it’s not true. There were no cuts. The money is there, in the Cleanup Fund’s bank account.”

Hochman estimated that Green Course would lose 10 percent of its budget unless Silman changed her mind, but that other, smaller organizations could see their budgets halved and even close.

The 26 signatories to the letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara say that Silman must “implement the fund management’s decision without delay, according to the law.”

Noting that members of the environmental movement span the political spectrum, the letter goes on to express concern that Silman’s decision was “tainted” by external considerations.

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

The Environmental Protection Ministry had not responded by the time of publication.