Israeli Ministry Trying to Compile Database of Citizens Who Support BDS

Senior officials say attorney general vehemently opposes Minister Gilad Erdan's
bid, arguing his ministry has no legal authority to collect information on Israelis.

Barak Ravid Mar 21, 2017 3:08 PM

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Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan wants to set up a database of Israeli
citizens who are involved in promoting and supporting boycotts, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) against Israel or the settlements.
Senior Israeli officials noted that Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit is
vehemently opposed to Erdans proposal, arguing that the Strategic Affairs
Ministry has no legal authority to collect information on Israeli citizens.
Three Israeli officials familiar with the issue said that Erdan, who in his
capacity as strategic affairs minister is responsible for coordinating Israels
response to the BDS movement, has been trying to advance his proposal for
several months. Erdan has already set up an intelligence unit to collect
information on foreign BDS activists, but also wants to collect information on
Israelis involved, and has discussed the matter with officials in other ministries,
most prominently the Justice Ministry.
The senior officials said that Erdan and his people made it clear that the
information would be assembled primarily from open sources the media, the
internet and social networks like Twitter and Facebook. But a few weeks ago
Deputy Attorney General Avi Licht distributed a legal opinion that Erdans
ministry had no authority to collect such information on citizens, and stressed
that this was forbidden even if the information was solely from open sources.
The database proposal also came up during a security cabinet meeting last week
that dealt with the government battle against the BDS movement. A senior
official who is familiar with what was discussed noted that Erdan said there was
a need for such a database since many Israeli citizens are involved in
encouraging boycotts against Israel and cooperate with those foreign BDS
activists against whom his ministry acts.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (L) with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
at a weekly cabinet meeting on February 13, 2017.Amit Sha'abi
A senior official who attended the security cabinet meeting recalled that Erdan
said that the intention was not to gather information on masses of people, but
solely on significant BDS activists, which he said numbered a few dozen people.
But Mendelblit, a senior official said, told the ministers, including Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, that the only body with the authority to collect this type
of information on Israelis is the Shin Bet security service, and that setting up
such a database by collecting material on Israeli citizens would undermine their
right to privacy.
Some of the ministers in attendance expressed surprise at the attorney
generals opposition and didnt understand what the problem was with collecting
information that was already public, the official said.
Neither Erdan nor the Strategic Affairs Ministry would respond for this report.
Erdans initiative is the latest in a series of moves by his ministry against BDS
activists. In August of last year, Erdan and Interior Minister Arye Dery set up a
joint team to prevent foreign BDS activists from entering Israel and to expel
foreign BDS activists in Israel. Erdan said then that one of the teams
objectives was to collect intelligence to facilitate the identification of BDS
activists from around the world and to collect evidence and build legal cases
that would allow for their expulsion.
In December Erdan suggested to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon that he set up
a committee to draw up a blacklist of companies, organizations, and even
individuals that consistently and methodically call for boycotts against Israel or
the West Bank settlements. Erdan proposed that sanctions be imposed on those
firms and agencies on the blacklist, such as being banned from bidding for
government contracts.
Erdan and his office, along with the Interior Ministry, were involved in passing
the new law earlier this month that bans people who support a boycott of Israel
or the settlements from entering the country.
Lawmaker Michal Rozin (Meretz) responded to this report, calling Erdan's
actions to collect information on Israeli citizens "McCarthyist, immoral and
illegal."
"Erdan smells elections in the air and cracks open with new initiatives of
hounding citizens," she said. "The collection of information does not stand in line
with the values of democracy and the law and it's good that the attorney
general strongly opposes it. Erdan's term appears to be particularly extreme and
populist; from incitement and falsehoods of arson and terror to political
persecution against political expression that does not align with the settler
right."
Israeli lawmaker Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) wondered, "Did Gilad Erdan hesitate
for a moment before he decided to turn his ministry in to a tool to hound
citizens? We're tired of warning and comparing ourselves to dictatorships but it
appears we have no choice when we're witnesses to a long string of steps meant
to kill freedom of thought and the right to criticize and to political choice.
Everything the government does is part of the same pincer movement that
decides for the citizen what he should think and what political view to maintain."

Barak Ravid
Haaretz Correspondent

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