How NGOs Came to Be Admired, and Why They Shouldn’t Be

When mainstream news outlets publish a report about some new horror supposedly perpetrated by Israel, odds are high that the source is a report by a nongovernmental organization (NGO) held up as an independent, neutral source with an altruistic agenda. In truth, these are often highly ideological institutions that receive a great deal of funding from governments, sometimes with budgets in the millions of dollars, with very little transparency. Some are closely linked to Hamas; others are cut-outs for China or other authoritarian governments. In conversation with Zoe Sankey, Gerald Steinberg explains how these groups came to wield so much influence, and how tyrannical regimes exploit them. (Video 63 minutes. Audio available at the link below.)