Netanyahu criticizes France for donating money to "anti-Israel" groups

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized France for donating money to "anti-Israel" groups.

At the start of his weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu addressed recent media reports, according to which the French government is mulling to ban foreign financing of French mosques in the wake of the recent terror attacks.

"This sounds familiar to us. We are also disturbed by such donations to organizations that deny the State of Israel's right to exist," he said.

Netanyahu said he had requested a preliminary check into this matter. The inquiry found financial support from France and other unnamed European countries for several organizations that engage in "incitement, call for a boycott of Israel and do not recognize the State of Israel's right to exist," he said.

Netanyahu said he intends to order a full investigation and submit the findings to the French government. "We will discuss this with them because terror is terror everywhere and incitement is incitement," he said.

Several anti-occupation organizations in Israel support a boycott of produce from the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel in 1967 and considered by the Palestinians as part of their future independent state.

Over the past years, the Israeli government passed several laws against rights groups and organizations that struggle against the occupation.

On July 12, the parliament approved a controversial bill that targets groups that receive more than half of their funding from overseas governments or bodies like the European Union.

Under the new legislation, these organizations will be required to state foreign funding they received in their annual financial reports.

In practice, it will affect almost only left-wing and human rights organizations because right-wing groups almost always rely on local donations.

Netanyahu's words also came amidst efforts by France to hold a peace conference by the end of this year to start the stalled Israel-Palestinian negotiations, which reached an impasse in 2014. Endit