IDF to track foreign anti-Israel groups

New section in Military Intelligence Directorate to collect data, passively probe groups from overseas, Gaza, West Bank aiming to delegitimize Israel

Israel's Military Intelligence has launched a new section that will be responsible of tracking foreign organizations located overseas, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which aim to delegitimize the State of Israel.

The IDF was planning to form the new section, inside the Research Department, headed by an officer in the rank of a major, prior to the Gaza-bound flotilla last may, with the intention of collecting information on the Turkish group that organized the sail.

The new section will not track Israeli leftist organizations such as Breaking the Silence and Machsom Watch, which regularly criticize the IDF and government policies, and will not engage in active investigations or summon interrogees to Israel.

Instead, the division will be responsible for collecting information and continuously supervising the organizations, while conducting passive investigations.

A recent bill urging the creation of a committee to probe the funding sources of leftist organizations was rejected by the Knesset plenum after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Likud members the freedom of vote.

The initiators of the bill claimed that certain Israeli organizations were cooperating with international coalitions aiming to undermine the legitimacy of the IDF and encourage draft-dodging while branding IDF soldiers and commanders as war criminals.