Israel's Tax Authority has informed Amnesty International that it was considering stripping it of tax benefits over its support for boycotting Israeli settlement product, he newspaper Haaretz reported on Thursday.
The government is looking to hold the human rights organization's branch in Israel responsible for the calls by Amnesty International to impose an embargo on Israeli weapons and to boycott goods made in Israel's West Bank settlements.
The newspaper noted that Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has led a seven-year campaign against the organization, and had pressured his predecessor Avigdor Lieberman to cancel these tax benefits.
Smotrich's office declined to comment on whether he was involved in the move.
The boycott law, which was passed in the Knesset in 2011, allows the finance and justice ministers to impose restrictions on any association or institution that called for boycotting settlements or Israel. These include depriving them of tax benefits, barring them from participating in government tenders, or outright cutting their public funding.
שתף את דעתך
Israeli tax authorities threaten Amnesty International over boycott law