Archiv: Kohelet Policy Forum


30.04.2023 - 10:45 [ New York Times ]

Who’s Behind the Judicial Overhaul Now Dividing Israel? Two New Yorkers.

(March 20, 2023)

“I don’t want to sound arrogant,” he told Ami, the Orthodox Jewish magazine, in 2019, “but in some sense we’re the brains of the Israeli right wing.”

Kohelet is not required to disclose the names of individual donors, and for years Mr. Koppel has artfully deflected questions about funding.

But one source of money is a second New Yorker: Arthur Dantchik, a 65-year-old multibillionaire who has donated millions to Kohelet, according to people familiar with his philanthropic giving. Mr. Dantchik did not return a call for comment.

30.04.2023 - 10:40 [ Haaretz ]

The American Billionaires Behind the Far-right Attempt to Destroy Liberal Israel

(Jan 15, 2023)

Justice Minister Yariv Levin‘s judicial overhaul was apparently written by the Kohelet Policy Forum, one of the best-funded research institutes in Israel, which advances nationalist, libertarian policies – and is funded by two American billionaires

20.02.2023 - 07:41 [ theIntercept.com ]

GOP Megadonor Is Funding a Far-Right Israeli Think Tank — and Establishment Democrats

Pulling from the playbook of the American Legislative Exchange Council — a Koch-backed group that writes model legislation for conservative lawmakers across the U.S. — Kohelet’s founder helped draft the law that became Israel’s Basic Law on the Nation-State in 2018. The controversial policy established Jewish people as having the sole right to self-determination, downgraded Arabic from its status as an official language, and declared the development of Jewish settlement a “national value.” Kohelet also drafted a new law that gives Israel’s Parliament the power to override Supreme Court decisions, grants the government complete control over judicial appointments, and abolishes the courts’ reasonableness doctrine, which was most recently used to disqualify a thrice-convicted criminal and Netanyahu ally from serving as health and interior minister.

12.03.2021 - 11:31 [ Haaretz ]

The U.S. Billionaires Secretly Funding the Right-wing Effort to Reshape Israel

The Kohelet Policy Forum has wielded increasing influence on Israel‘s decision-making centers, with an ideology that weds conservative, settlement-supporting politics to free-market economics. Who is the guiding force behind this under-the-radar enterprise – and who‘s bankrolling it?