The EU Funding of Israeli Non-governmental Human Rights Organizations: When EU External Governance Meets a Domestic Counter-Strategy

Abstract:

This article analyses the European Union's (EU's) practice of funding of Israeli Human Rights NGOs. It argues that the pursuance of such a model of governance is a natural choice for the EU, yet such pursuance has encountered in Israel a bottom-to-top counter-strategy of delegitimization conducted against the EU, the NGOs and their collaboration. This counter-strategy was found to discredit the NGOs and the EU and render their mutual collaboration less effective.