Sunday, March 06, 2016

Elad's donors

POLITICS: Right-wing Israeli Group Elad Received Millions From Shadowy Private Donors. Donations to the NGO, which champions Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, topped $115 million over eight years, much from companies based in global tax shelters. (Uri Blau and Nir Hasson, Haaretz).
The right-wing organization Elad received donations worth over 450 million shekels ($115 million) between 2006 and 2013, Elad documents filed to Israel’s Registrar of Non-Profit Organizations show.

According to the Haaretz investigation, most of the donations came from companies registered in global tax shelters like the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands and the Seychelles, and it is unclear who controls them.

Elad, which operates in East Jerusalem, has two main focuses: settling Jews in the largely Arab Silwan neighborhood and running tourist and excavation sites. The chief tourist site is Ir David – the City of David – which it runs for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. Elad has also been in a legal battle with the government over a planned archaeology park next to the Western Wall.

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There's more on Elad (the Ir David Foundation) here with many links. The article includes a very detailed breakdown of the publicly available information on Elad's donors. Of interest to PaleoJudaica:
Another contributor is the Orion Foundation, which is registered in the Isle of Man in Britain. Orion gave 525,000 shekels in 2013 alone.

This foundation is also the sponsor of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It has also contributed to NGO Monitor, which tracks the transparency of human rights organizations.
More on the Orion Center is here.

Also included is the following information about other NGOs:
It is doubtful whether another Israeli NGO can boast such a cash flow and the accompanying outlays.

In comparison, in 2014 the Association for Civil Rights in Israel raised 7.4 million shekels from private donors and foreign countries, the left-wing NGO Breaking the Silence raised less than 1.5 million shekels, Peace Now raised 2.8 million shekels and right-wing group Im Tirtzu raised 1.7 million shekels.
It would be interesting for comparison to have an article with the same level of detail about the contributors to Emek Shaveh, a left-wing NGO that often (see here, here, here, and links) appears in the media in opposition to Elad. The Emek Shaveh link above lists some major donors, but the information is not comprehensive.