FOUL PLAY AT THE NEW ISRAEL FUND

by Ben Dror Yemini

Ma'ariv

The New Israel Fund is angry. It thinks that it is correct to disseminate false testimony about the State of Israel. It thinks that it is okay to take part in the demonization campaign that is being staged by organizations whose goal is the elimination of Israel. It thinks that it is okay to cooperate with the Goldstone commission, even though it was formed by an automatic majority of the benighted countries that control the UN Human Rights Council. It thinks that it is okay that Israel cooperate with the commission, even though there is no country in the free world that supported the committee’s formation. And it is absolutely legitimate, in a democratic country, to do all these things.

But there is another thing that is also legitimate to do: to reveal the truth about the fund and the organizations that falsely claim the title of being “human rights” organizations. If most of the political organizations supported by the fund do not recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state-don’t cry human rights. Say the truth: the denial of rights to Jews only. The Palestinians have a right to a nation state in a state of their own, as do the Croats and the Hungarians and the Czechs and the Slovaks and other nations-but not the Jews.

The New Israel Fund supports, for example, the Zochrot organization. This is a non-profit organization that strives, avowedly and openly, to destroy the State of Israel by means of exercising the “right of return.” Not that there is any such right, and not that there ever was another precedent for a mass “return” after a population swap in the wake of wars-but this does not bother the New Israel Fund. It will always jump in under the slogan of “human rights.”

All this doesn’t mean that Israel is exempt from criticism. After all, out of the hundreds of allegations, there are a few of substance. But if many sane people loathe the human rights organizations, it’s not because they loathe human rights. Just the opposite. It’s because the sane majority is fed up with human rights becoming the weapon of benighted forces. It’s because the New Israel Fund has turned itself into another organization, one of many in the world, which are party to this global deception. There are a million and one offenses to human lives and human rights in the world. Israel, as a state in conflict, offends less than all others. This has been checked. This is backed up in numbers. But it is the one taking the brunt of the criticism. This is called demonization, delegitimization and obsession. This is not defense of human rights but, rather, an orchestrated campaign in the service of Iran and Hamas. This is not the intent of the fund. But it is the result.

We should call things by their real names. The majority of the organizations supported by the New Israel Fund work to delegitimize Israel. But the fund rolls its eyes heavenward and whines: what’s wrong with human rights? There is nothing wrong. What’s wrong are those who strive clearly to deny the Jews’ right to exist in the only place where they have sovereignty, to turn Israel into a “country of all its citizens” in which the majority will be Hamas supporters. It is wrong when someone wants to commit politicide against only one other people in the world. It is wrong when someone cooperates with the forces of evil and tries to sell the lie that this is “human rights.”

How is it that many, mainly Jews, support this fund? How is it that they enable this systematic campaign that pretends to be humane, and in practice is demonic? They are not anti-Semites. They are people with good intentions. After all, the rhetoric is about human rights and minorities. Jews are sensitive to that. And it’s good that they are. Most of them simply don’t know. Most of the sincerely and truly want for Israel to be more enlightened and more advanced, while being stricter about human lives and human rights. But they do not know that the money goes to other goals. Even Prof. Naomi Chazan, who heads the fun, is not a hater of Israel. But what happened to them is exactly what has happened to innumerable organizations that deal with the “discourse of rights.” Ultimately, they serve the agenda of Iran and Hamas.

Human rights organizations can earn back the trust in them. They must support human rights, not organizations that work to deny Israel’s right to exist. In the meantime, these organizations, and this includes the New Israel Fund, are not only Israel’s great enemy, but also that of the free world and of human rights.