Bedein responds to NIF claims against Bedein in the Jewish Week

NIF is claiming that there are factual errors in Crossing Red Lines; NIF and Israel


1. We have never funded Zochrot or New Profile, never. Not
donor-advised, not Ford, not nobody.

2. We haven¹t funded Coalition for Women for Peace since 2006.

3. Adalah had no involvement with the so-called ³Durban2² conference,
NIF signed the Magenta Principles objecting to any anti-Israel agenda at
that conference and we refused to fund any attendance or participation
there. If Saleh is a client of Adalah¹s, that by no means equates to
agreeing with his agenda; were that so, every criminal defense lawyer in New
York city could be held liable for his client¹s questionable views.

4. MOST IMPORTANT, WHAT IS BEDEIN¹S SOURCE FOR THE LIST OF NIF GRANTEES
ACCUSING ISRAEL OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY DURING GAZA.

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15 Feb 2010
POB 71098, BEIT AGRON, JERUSALEM ISRAEL

David Bedein
Director, Israel Resource News Agency & The Center for Near East Policy Research Ltd

RESPONSE TO REBUTTAL FROM THE NIF

Publicly available records from the New Israel Fund and from NIF constituent agencies can easily refute the four claims of the NIF.

Zochrot, which advocates the right of return for Palestinian refugees to homes that they left in 1948, is featured on the NIF's Shatil web site
(1)
This past week, after the Jewish Week revealed NIF support of Zochrot, that “url” mysteriously disappeared. However, a search in the “Cache” of deleted web sites did resurrect the Zochrot url on the NIF Shatil website.

In addition,Zochrot itself publicly expresses appreciation to the NIF's Shatil organization for helping Zochrot with their fund raising. (2)

Contrary to the NIF claim that NIF stopped funding the Coalition of Women for Peace in 2006, financial statements issued by the New Israel Fund show that NIF continued to provide substantive funds to the Coalition of Women for Peace in 2007 and 2008. (3)

New Profile, which receives its funding from the Coalition of Women for Peace, actively campaigns and counsels young people against enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces, and is prominently featured on at least six places on the NIF Shatil website. (4)

Why would NIF claim that NIF funded Adalah played no role in the Durban II conference in Geneva last April, when, in fact, a representative of Adalah joined representatives of other Israeli Arab organizations in a vociferous lobby against Israel. (5)

At the same time, it would be surprising if NIF did not know that NIF grantees Adalah and the Coalition of Women for Peace's constituent groups issued public letters that reached the Goldstone Commission which accused Israel of war crimes (6) and that The Rabbis for Human Rights, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and Breaking the Silence, all funded by the NIF, set up a GazaWar website which accused Israel of war crimes. (7)

It would also be surprising if NIF did not read the testimonies before the Goldstone Commission of more than 15 NIF grantees who alluded to Israeli war crimes in Gaza. (8)

The NIF prides itself in transparency and in the fact that its constituent agencies operate in the open.

That very transparency helps a reporter to critique the NIF's activities in the public domain.

This should be a time of “heshbon nefesh” for the NIF to reconsider policies and positions adopted by some NIF supported groups who choose to demonize Israel, instead of playing games of denial.

It is one thing for the NIF to criticize Israeli policy. It is quite another matter for the NIF to demonize Israel.

FOOTNOTES:

1. http://www.shatil.org.il/organization/1687
This is the recovered link:
http://us.mg4.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.gx=1&.rand=4sccauu79puke

.2. http://zochrot.org/images/Zoc_AR07eng_final.pdf
“Eitan Bronstein, the director, also arranged to receive supervision from Tamar Oversky, an organizational consultant from Shatil. With the increase in Zochrot’s budget, a number of ideas are being considered to improve how we track expenditures on activities”.

3. http://tinyurl.com/ydpd2js

4. http://www.shatil.org.il/organization/859
http://www.shatil.org.il/organizations/by_field/14
http://www.shatil.org.il/organizations/by_field/20
http://www.shatil.org.il/org”anizations/by_field/15?page=4
http://www.shatil.org.il/sites/tzedek/organizations
http://www.shatil.org.il/organizations/by_area/122?page=3 http://www.shatil.org.il/modaot/867

5. The Adalah's annual report states that “Adalah Board member, Fouad Sultani, participated as an observer in the Durban Review Conference (DRC)held in Geneva in 4/09. His participation was supported by the UN. Badil, Al-Haq and Adalah wrote to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to express our disappointment and concern that the DRC neglected the victims of severe racial discrimination, in particular the Palestinians...” http://www.adalah.org/eng/intladvocacy2009.php

6. www.cihrs,org/English/News System/Articles/673

7.http://www.politicalgroove.com/showthread.php?12939-Open-Letter-to-Israeli-Soldiers-Jews-call-to-stop-War-Crimes


8. pp 29-60 of “The Influence of New Israel Fund Organizations on the Goldstone Report” , which can be found at:
http://israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/NIFGoldstone.pdf