NGO Funding?! Only WE’RE Allowed To Label Where Things Are From!

By the European Union

The legislation approved by Israel’s cabinet yesterday, requiring that NGOs receiving more than half their finding from foreign governments be marked as such in all their dealings in the Knesset, violates a central principle of democracy: only we, the European Union, are allowed to require that anything be marked based on its origin and the interests it represents.

That principle lies at the very heart of the recent EU decision to label all products originating in Israeli communities beyond the Green Line as made in “settlements,” since of course we cannot label them as Made In Israel. The fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only territorial dispute of over 200 worldwide in for which we insisted that such a distinction be made illustrates exactly this point: only we are allowed to decide what, who, and under what circumstances a label is to be applied. You Israelis seem to think it’s OK for you to do that, too, but you err in believing that the same rules apply to you. You’re different. We could explain why, but you probably wouldn’t understand.

Essentially, we have never truly relinquished the ethnocentric notion that our political and societal sensibilities are superior to all others. The trauma of two world wars fought on our soil put a dent in our desire to fight militarily, but no one ever convinced us that we’re not better than everyone else, because we’re so goddamn moral. More moral than you, anyway, because we say so. And we’ll adduce moral principles to prove it, conveniently devised post-hoc to justify all of our discriminatory policies. We’re so moral, in fact, that we sacrifice our citizens to predatory, rapacious gangs of immigrant men. Protecting our women and prosecuting immigrant rapists would be immoral. Because only we are allowed to decide what is moral.

Israel cannot do that – you are tainted by Occupation. We, on the other hand, are pure, and may freely lecture you on what to do and what not to do, because of our unique moral position, as defined by our convenience and political expediencies. All that stuff that happened before 1946? Ancient history! It does not define us now, or reflect on our moral standing. As opposed to what happened to the Palestinians in 1948 – that’s relevant in the here and now. It’s practically yesterday!

So the Knesset better not pass that law. Such legislation would undermine the democratic nature of Israel’s system, which of course is its most important feature. You Jews think it’s the “Jewish state” part, but you’re wrong. Because we say so.

And we decide who says what around here. Because we said so.