NGO Monitor on eliminating human rights monitoring of Israel entirely and smearing anyone who supports this vital activity". The 2013 Menachem Begin Prize was awarded to NGO Monitor, "a leading organization defending the State of Israel and the Jewish people." The Begin Prize is awarded for “extraordinary act(s) for the benefit of the State of Israel and/or the Jewish People.” Natan Sharansky said, “NGO Monitor is the leading organization defending the State of Israel and the Jewish people.” Leonard Fein, writing for "The Forward" in 2005, said that NGO Monitor is "an organization that believes that the best way to defend Israel
Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky (, , ; born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky (, ) on 20 January 1948) is an Israeli politician, human rights activist and author who, as a refusenik in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, spent nine years in Soviet prisons. He has served as Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency since June 2009, to be replaced in August 2018 by Isaac Herzog. Sharansky was born in Donetsk (then called Stalino), Soviet Union on 20 January 1948 to a Jewish family. He graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics