ZOA Condemns U.S. State Dept. Funding Anti-Israel Protest Organizers in Israel
News Press Release
March 13, 2023

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

It is appalling that the U.S. State Department is sending our U.S. tax dollars to the partisan, radical left wing anti-government, anti-Netanyahu, so-called “Movement for Quality Government” (MQG) protest organization in Israel. (See Report: “How Taxpayer Funds Are Flowing to a Group Bankrolling Anti-Netanyahu Protests,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, Mar. 6, 2023.) ZOA demands that the State Department end such funding and be held accountable for it.

MQG is a major group instigating, supporting and participating in violent, dangerous anti-government protests that are creating chaos in Israel. These protests are blocking highways, roads, interchanges and ports (Israel’s lifelines); disrupting trains and Ben Gurion airport; demonstrating outside government officials’ homes; blocking government officials from attending meetings; and clashing with police officers – all at the same time when the Israeli government is trying to deal with massive deadly shooting, knifing and ramming attacks by Palestinian Arab terrorists on innocent Israeli Jewish men, women, children and babies.

The English version of MQG’s website boasts that MQG “organizes mass movement campaigns and promotes legislative changes for and on behalf of the public.” The Hebrew version of MQG’s website contains anti-government incitement, such as: “Netanyahu and his government are not qualified to manage the state, seriously damage democracy and drag us all into the abyss of a fascist dictatorship.” Fascist?

MQG apparently opposes the will of the Israeli electorate – despite its “Movement for Quality Government” name. MQG brags on the Hebrew version of its website that MQG filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court that Netanyahu should immediately go to prison; and added that in furtherance of its petition, the MQG “will hold a huge demonstration in front of the Knesset.” MQG also called democratic votes on needed, legitimate reforms in the current anti-democratic judicial selection process “a political coup.”

In May 2021, after Hamas launched over 4,600 rockets at Israeli civilians, murdering 12 innocent Jews and injuring hundreds of innocent Jews, MQG sided with Hamas by participating in protests in front of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s home. MQG’s protests blamed Netanyahu for Israel’s needed military action to stop Hamas’ attacks on Israeli civilians. Hamas’ rocket attacks commenced shortly after the Biden administration resumed sending hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars Hamas-infested UNRWA. Biden also sends $800 million to the terrorist dictatorship of the Palestinian regime.

MQG also subverted Israeli democracy and education by petitioning the Israeli Supreme Court to remove Aryeh Deri from serving as a cabinet minister (thwarting the will of 400,000 Israelis who voted for Deri’s party); and by working to bar Israeli Jewish schoolchildren from learning about the Bible, Jewish history, religious traditions and holidays; and instead indoctrinating them to believe that Zionism – Jewish self-determination – is wrong. (See How Biden Subverts Israeli Democracy,” by Caroline Glick, JNS, Feb. 17, 2023.)

The U.S. State Department’s funding of MQG is part of the Biden and former Obama-Biden administrations’ pattern of using U.S. taxpayer funds and taxpayer-funded officials to illegally interfere with Israel’s internal affairs, elections and democracy.

A U.S. Senate Oversight report found that the Obama-Biden administration’s State Department granted $349,000 to the left wing “OneVoice Israel” and “OneVoice Palestine” political organizations. The grants were used to craft a strategy to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu; to execute media and social media campaigns; to sponsor events with left wing politicians; to execute supposed “grassroots” mobilization to support a Palestinian state; and to build an infrastructure including voter lists and databases used by V15 to attempt to defeat Netanyahu in the 2015 elections. In addition the State Department granted another $40,000 to OneVoice to retain a U.S. consulting firm to train Israeli staff in using “best-in-class metrics-based micro-targeting methods of grassroots organizing.” (See Review of U.S. State Department Grants to OneVoice,” Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, S. Prt. 114-24, July 2016.)

Biden and his administration’s officials, including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have persistently interfered with Israel’s security, sovereignty, border determinations, security protocols, Jews’ lawful rights to build homes, and needed judicial reform. (See, e.g., Amb. Tom Nides Should Not Interfere in Israel’s Domestic Affairs,” by Mort Klein, JNS, Mar. 8, 2023; and “Biden’s Policies Voiced at Israeli and Palestinian Mtgs. Demanding Israel Return to ‘67 “Auschwitz” Lines, End Checkpoints, Open Jerusalem Arab Consulate – and More – Show Biden’s No Friend to Israel,”

July 18, 2022.)

All this dangerous, illegal, unconscionable U.S. funding and interference with Israel’s internal affairs must stop.

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