Netanyahu freezes bills targeting human rights groups' funding

A week after a Ministerial Committee for Legislation gave an approval of bills, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to freeze the parliamentary process that would ratify bills aimed at limiting foreign funding of Israeli human rights organizations. According to the sources, Netanyahu decided to indefinitely postpone appeals submitted against the Ministerial Committee for Legislation's vote, meaning that Knesset members won't be able to ratify the bills. Under the bills, which are sponsored by two members of Netanyahu's Likud party - MKs Tzipi Hotovely and Ofir Akunis, they would cap foreign governments' contributions to "political" non-governmental organizations at NIS 20,000. Officials close to the bills' proponents told Haaretz Saturday that they feel "Netanyahu is working to jam these bills. Maybe he was scared from the criticism he had heard from foreign representatives and from the Attorney General." The European Union and the United States, as well as other countries, have been pressing Netanyahu's office, urging the new legislation be scrapped. Near the bills' approval in the cabinet, EU's ambassador to Israel, Andrew Standley, contacted the prime minister's national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, and warned him that the passage of the legislation could harm Israel's standing in the West as a democratic country.