Netanyahu seeks parliamentary probe into New Israel Fund

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he asked coalition chairman David Amsalem to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the activities of the New Israel Fund.

The New Israel Fund “endangers the security and future of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” the prime minister writes on Facebook.

He rips into the left-wing group for allegedly convincing Rwanda not to accept migrants deported from Israel (a claim the NIF denied as “lies” on Monday).

“The New Israel Fund is a foreign organization that receives funding from foreign governments and figures who are hostile to Israel, like the funds of George Soros,” says Netanyahu. “The overarching goal of the New Israel Fund is to erase the Jewish character of Israel and turn it into a state of all of its citizens, alongside a Palestinian nation-state free of Jews on the ’67 lines, with its capital in Jerusalem.”

He further accuses the New Israel Fund of supporting “anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian” causes, such as  the Breaking the Silence and Adalah NGOs.

“I don’t know of any Western democracy, and particularly the United States, that would tolerate hostile activity funded by foreign countries, as has happened here in Israel with the New Israel Fund for decades,” he says.