The influence of New Israel Fund organizations on the Goldstone Report
COMMISSIONED AND TRANSLATED BY THE "IM TIRTZU" ORGANIZATION, http://imti.org.il/en
Executive Summary
The Goldstone Report, published in September 2009, seriously harmed the international image of the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the gravity of the report's impact in his December 23, 2009 address to the Knesset plenum: "There are three primary threats facing us today: the nuclear threat, the missile threat and what I call the Goldstone threat… Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense. It didn't just start now.
The international campaign against Israel has gone on since the Durban Conference in 2000 and since the attempt in 2003 to condemn the security fence that has protected Israeli children – but is condemned just the same – in The Hague… We all have a real problem here. Ehud Olmert speaks on campuses in the United States, and he's denounced as a war criminal. Defense Minister Ehud Barak – they want to arrest him in London. And there's a warrant out against Tzipi Livni, the Opposition leader. You all know the truth in your hearts. This is an all-out offensive, not just against one Israeli government or another."1
Israeli President Shimon Peres similarly denounced the Goldstone Report: "The report essentially grants legitimacy to terrorism, premeditated shooting and killing, while ignoring the obligation and the right of every country to defend itself, something which is explicitly stated in the UN charter."2
The aim of this study is to examine the level of involvement of New Israel Fund organizations in the formation of the Goldstone Committee Report.
The New Israel Fund is a capital fund that invests in and supports hundreds of radical leftist organizations that operate in various fields. The fund operates on two levels: first, as an incubator for new organizations, granting them professional services in their various activities, and second, as a financial backer for organizations that “grew up” with the fund, as well as others that did not.
The New Israel Fund is registered in the United States and its current president is former left-wing Knesset member for the Meretz party, Prof. Naomi Chazan. According to figures published by the fund, since its inception the fund has distributed over $140 million. Beyond the sponsorship that the fund grants organizations supported by it (which are referred to on the fund’s website as “the fund’s organizations,” the fund publicizes the activities and achievements of the organizations in the many articles that appear on its website.
In April 2009 the Goldstone Committee began its work, under the auspices of the UN. The decision to appoint the committee was preceded by heavy international pressure on the UN, including from NIF organizations. The Goldstone Committee sought the assistance of many NGOs as sources of information and confirmation for establishing its arguments and findings, including 16 organizations from among the New Israel Fund’s organizations: Adalah; Breaking the Silence; B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel; HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual; The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; Yesh Din; Physicians for Human Rights; Gisha; Bimkom; Rabbis for Human Rights; Itach – Women Lawyers for Social Justice; Other Voice and organizations in the Coalition of Women for Peace (New Profile, Machsom Watch and the Who Profits from the Occupation project).
An analysis of the Goldstone Report reveals that the weight of the reliance of the report’s authors on New Israel Fund organizations, out of all the Israeli sources, was 42%. A more detailed analysis of the data reveals that among the Israeli organizations mentioned in the report, and on whose publications Goldstone bases his accusations against the IDF and Israel, there are some that contradict the report's allegations in their publications, or which have a neutral stance toward the allegations. Fully 92% of the quotes from Israeli organizations that support the claims against Israel come from organizations funded by the NIF. Without the NIF's publications, Goldstone would have nothing on which to base most of the claims made by Israeli organizations. This is a staggering example of a self-propelled process: the very organizations that pressed for the establishment of the commission provided the testimonies used by the Goldstone commission to justify its claims against the IDF and Israel, and most of these organizations are supported by the NIF.
The New Israel Fund organizations stand out not only relative to the Israeli sources and organizations that contributed to the claims against the IDF and Israel, but also relative to the general information sources on which the report relied (14%). Furthermore, foreign media sources and organizations quoted in the report themselves quote New Israel Fund organizations to support their arguments against Israel. Thus the citations backing up the testimonies of those sources effectively reiterate the claims of the New Israel Fund organizations, but this time are quoted in their name.
The fund’s financial reports show that the New Israel Fund organizations that contributed to the international damage caused by the Goldstone Report received monetary support from the fund in the years 2006-2008 totaling $7,805,226 (almost $8 million!).
In recent years Israel has been increasingly accused of war crimes, and this allegation has become a type of new weapon among leftist organizations, whose aim is apparently not only to protest but also to undermine the fighting spirit IDF soldiers and officers.
The direct and indirect effects of these organizations' activities include the international denunciation of Israel; anti-Israel demonstrations around the world; demands to prosecute IDF officers in a number of European countries; pressure from the UN and various countries to halt the fighting; economic sanctions against Israeli companies; suits for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation and expressions of anti-Semitism in the wake of Israel's defamation around the world.
In effect, a small group of leftist organizations that is financed by identical foreign sources has created international pressure that is seriously harming Israel in the diplomatic arena and challenged Israel's legitimate right to self-defense in the future. The foreign funding finances the activities of organizations that incite Israelis against the IDF and the State of Israel.
It should be stressed that while the declared "noble" intentions of most of these organizations are to fight for "social justice" and "human rights" throughout all the years during which thousands of missiles were fired against the residents of Sderot and the residents of northern Israel, aimed deliberately at innocent Israeli civilians, hardly a word was heard from the organizations.
It is also astounding that while the New Israel Fund organizations were partners to the international defamation of Israel and the IDF, via the Goldstone Report, the NIF was operating joint programs with the Jewish Agency and various government ministries. These programs
included:
• Active Citizenship, a high school program run jointly by the NIF and the Education
Ministry.3
• Fans for the Prevention of Violence in Sports, a program run jointly by the NIF, the Culture
and Sports Ministry and the Internal Security Ministry.4
• A joint project with the Jewish Agency to promote the social integration of Ethiopian
immigrants via vocational training and social advocacy programs. 5
• The Birthright program, run jointly by the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency. 6
The current study presents a survey of the 16 NIF organizations and shows their substantial influence on the Goldstone Report and the crystallization of the accusations against Israel and the IDF.
Furthermore, an analysis of the research material reveals that the joint actions of some of the organizations funded by the NIF was intended not only to protest against IDF actions, but also to coordinate international activities against Israel, resulting in serious damage to Israel's image around the world and the impairment of the IDF's ability to defend Israel during times of military conflict. 40% of the evidence on which the Goldstone Report based its arguments originated in publications of NIF (14%) and Palestinian (26%) organizations. Without the NIF, over 90% of the claims against Israel that were based on Israeli publications would not have been in the report.
View the full report HERE at Israel Behind the News
Showing posts with label Im Tirtzu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Im Tirtzu. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
The New Israel Fund and the Threat from the Left to Israel's Democratic System
by Dr. Joel Fishman for Makor Rishon
Two weeks ago, the disclosures of the Zionist student group, Im Tirtsu, shocked the Israeli public when they revealed that sixteen organizations supported by the New Israel Fund contributed most of the information upon which the Goldstone Report was based. These disclosures were part of another unpleasant revelation, the Goldstone Report, which delivered a harsh political blow to the legitimacy of the State. Israel's leaders failed to anticipate the political consequences of last winter's Operation Cast Lead: that Israel would be accused of perpetrating war crimes and that its respectable position in the world would be endangered. The resulting damage to Israel’s image has been unprecedented.
This grave misperception by Israel's leadership is the result of their viewing the conflict primarily in military terms and intentionally disregarding the political dimension. In an interview with Israel Television's Ayala Hasson on 21 January 2009, Defense Minister Ehud Barak confidently declared that Israel had delivered an unprecedented blow to the Hamas, and if necessary, Israel would not hesitate to send the army back to Gaza to deliver more such blows.
Slowly but surely, the game has changed. Because Israel's enemies have failed to win militarily, they have begun waging a war by indirect means. Their main political goal is to destroy Israel's legitimacy and convey it to the Palestinian Authority. Their tactics include undermining Israel's political structure, eroding its traditional values of family and religion, crippling its legal system and law enforcement agencies, weakening the armed forces, paralyzing the government's ability to use its military force and thus limit her options for self defense. In the wake of the Goldstone Report, the government has publicly acknowledged the challenge this political warfare poses. Prime Minister Netanyahu declared his determination to counter what he termed the "Goldstone Effect."
Accordingly, the NIF must be viewed as an important link and conduit in a cultural and political network whose real purpose is to undermine the Jewish State and replace it with another entity. The NIF is neither democratically elected nor does it represent a constituency. Although its professed goal is to "strengthen democracy" in Israel, the nature of its activities does not support this claim. An organization such as the NIF receives donations from private donors, foundations abroad and foreign governments. In turn, it distributes funds to smaller organizations that are active among Jews and Arabs, who cultivate discontentment to create political capital of their grievances.
The New Israel Fund is much more than a charitable foundation. It wages political warfare and operates as a front organization "that serves as a cover for aims and activities other than its professed ones." During the thirties, Willi Muenzenberg, the propaganda genius of the Comintern devised this type of organizational form (New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought). Although the Comintern has disappeared, front organizations in Israel and elsewhere continue to operate and use these traditional methods, in line with the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.
Like other front organizations that avow one goal, but seek another, the New Israel Fund claims it strives for social justice and progressive change in Israeli society. Yet they conceal the ultimate goal, namely, The New Israel, which can only be achieved by destroying Israel as we know it. The logical outcome of this program is a coup d'Etat through a process of discrediting the Zionist ideal, gutting its political and social institutions, and disfranchising the current middle-class holders of power in Israeli society. The front organizations of our time obscure their true objectives and intentionally operate in a decentralized manner in order to escape the attention of law enforcement agencies. They may be recognized, nonetheless, by the uniformity of the message they project.
The problem of the New Israel Fund is that by providing information to the Goldstone Report in cooperation with its allied organizations, it succeeded in drawing attention to its formidable strength and its successful penetration within Israeli society. If any good is to come from this unhappy and dangerous experience, it is that we should grasp the true objectives of these groups and the real threat they represent to the stability of Israel's society, to its legally constituted democracy and to our future as a Jewish state. For years it has been almost axiomatic that the "extreme right" is a lethal danger to the state. The lesson which we should learn from the recent and dramatic disclosures of the Im Tirtsu report is that the well-organized and affluent radical left may represent an even more perilous threat to the State of Israel.
See this article at Israel Behind the News
Two weeks ago, the disclosures of the Zionist student group, Im Tirtsu, shocked the Israeli public when they revealed that sixteen organizations supported by the New Israel Fund contributed most of the information upon which the Goldstone Report was based. These disclosures were part of another unpleasant revelation, the Goldstone Report, which delivered a harsh political blow to the legitimacy of the State. Israel's leaders failed to anticipate the political consequences of last winter's Operation Cast Lead: that Israel would be accused of perpetrating war crimes and that its respectable position in the world would be endangered. The resulting damage to Israel’s image has been unprecedented.
This grave misperception by Israel's leadership is the result of their viewing the conflict primarily in military terms and intentionally disregarding the political dimension. In an interview with Israel Television's Ayala Hasson on 21 January 2009, Defense Minister Ehud Barak confidently declared that Israel had delivered an unprecedented blow to the Hamas, and if necessary, Israel would not hesitate to send the army back to Gaza to deliver more such blows.
Slowly but surely, the game has changed. Because Israel's enemies have failed to win militarily, they have begun waging a war by indirect means. Their main political goal is to destroy Israel's legitimacy and convey it to the Palestinian Authority. Their tactics include undermining Israel's political structure, eroding its traditional values of family and religion, crippling its legal system and law enforcement agencies, weakening the armed forces, paralyzing the government's ability to use its military force and thus limit her options for self defense. In the wake of the Goldstone Report, the government has publicly acknowledged the challenge this political warfare poses. Prime Minister Netanyahu declared his determination to counter what he termed the "Goldstone Effect."
Accordingly, the NIF must be viewed as an important link and conduit in a cultural and political network whose real purpose is to undermine the Jewish State and replace it with another entity. The NIF is neither democratically elected nor does it represent a constituency. Although its professed goal is to "strengthen democracy" in Israel, the nature of its activities does not support this claim. An organization such as the NIF receives donations from private donors, foundations abroad and foreign governments. In turn, it distributes funds to smaller organizations that are active among Jews and Arabs, who cultivate discontentment to create political capital of their grievances.
The New Israel Fund is much more than a charitable foundation. It wages political warfare and operates as a front organization "that serves as a cover for aims and activities other than its professed ones." During the thirties, Willi Muenzenberg, the propaganda genius of the Comintern devised this type of organizational form (New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought). Although the Comintern has disappeared, front organizations in Israel and elsewhere continue to operate and use these traditional methods, in line with the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.
Like other front organizations that avow one goal, but seek another, the New Israel Fund claims it strives for social justice and progressive change in Israeli society. Yet they conceal the ultimate goal, namely, The New Israel, which can only be achieved by destroying Israel as we know it. The logical outcome of this program is a coup d'Etat through a process of discrediting the Zionist ideal, gutting its political and social institutions, and disfranchising the current middle-class holders of power in Israeli society. The front organizations of our time obscure their true objectives and intentionally operate in a decentralized manner in order to escape the attention of law enforcement agencies. They may be recognized, nonetheless, by the uniformity of the message they project.
The problem of the New Israel Fund is that by providing information to the Goldstone Report in cooperation with its allied organizations, it succeeded in drawing attention to its formidable strength and its successful penetration within Israeli society. If any good is to come from this unhappy and dangerous experience, it is that we should grasp the true objectives of these groups and the real threat they represent to the stability of Israel's society, to its legally constituted democracy and to our future as a Jewish state. For years it has been almost axiomatic that the "extreme right" is a lethal danger to the state. The lesson which we should learn from the recent and dramatic disclosures of the Im Tirtsu report is that the well-organized and affluent radical left may represent an even more perilous threat to the State of Israel.
See this article at Israel Behind the News
Hey New Israel Fund, Criticism is a Democratic Right
by Anne Herzberg for the Jerusalem Post
It’s strange that groups claiming to be well-versed in human rights seem so unfamiliar with the concept of free speech.
Talkbacks (1)
Those who make a full-time pursuit of criticizing others probably should grow thicker skin. Yet the New Israel Fund (NIF) and its NGO grantees have launched a thin-skinned offensive against an Israeli student group that criticized them. And they have dragged NGO Monitor into the fray.
As soon as Im Tirtzu released its report detailing how Israeli human rights organizations contributed to the Goldstone Report, NIF backers unleashed ad hominem attacks against the student group and against NGO Monitor (though we were not involved in the report). NIF has threatened to sue Im Tirtzu and any newspaper that repeats its findings. It also sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calling NGO Monitor “the rotten fruit of Israeli democracy.”
The record needs to be set straight regarding many troubling aspects of NIF’s combative reaction. To avert criticism of their activities, many of the non-governmental organizations highlighted in Im Tirtzu’s report - such as B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel - are promoting the canard that if only Israel had cooperated with Richard Goldstone and his UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war, his report would not have been as outrageously one-sided as it turned out to be.
In truth, there is no evidence that Israeli participation in the Goldstone mission would have changed the outcome of the widely panned report.
Goldstone’s mission was the product of a political war conducted against Israel in the UN Human Rights Council. Led by some of the world’s most abusive regimes - including China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia - this corrupt body has ignored mass atrocities such as the genocide in Darfur, the slaughter of more than 25,000 Sri Lankans and the forced starvation and enslavement of North Koreans. Indeed, the Goldstone mission was created by the Organization of the Islamic Conference to deflect attention from the horrific abuses of its member states and their supporters. In fact, according to the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Goldstone’s mission was financed by the Arab League.
FOR HIS part, Goldstone went along with the farce. Where facts exonerating the IDF existed - whether from the UN, the Israeli Foreign Ministry or independent sources - Goldstone apparently ignored or twisted such evidence, choosing instead to credit Hamas sources.
Israeli NGOs played a central role in laying the foundation for Goldstone’s untenable report. During the fighting in Gaza, these groups issued nonstop allegations of “war crimes,” “collective punishment” and intentional murder of civilians. They delivered countless publications containing speculative and unconfirmed claims used to bolster the HRC’s predetermined conclusions. Much of the Goldstone Report was based directly on these inflammatory charges.
Rather than admit their role, these organizations now seek to absolve themselves of responsibility. While NGO assertions of Goldstone’s fairness are perhaps rooted in naiveté, the attempts by the NIF and its grantees to muzzle critics are far more pernicious. Since NGO Monitor first raised the issue of European government funding for supposedly “nongovernmental” organizations (many of which also receive financial and other support from the NIF), these groups have resorted to childish attacks. They have bizarrely characterized NGO Monitor as “extremist” and “right-wing” (whatever those terms mean), and complained that simply reporting on their funding and activities amounts to “repression of dissent.”
But the right of expression always comes with the potential for disapproval. It is strange that groups claiming to be so well-versed in human rights seem so unfamiliar with the concept of free speech.
These attacks must not divert attention from the massive power that NIF and its beneficiaries wield. NIF has an annual budget of $32 million. Its Israeli grantees also receive tens of millions annually from the EU, European governments, the US-based Ford Foundation and George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
NIF-funded NGOs regularly engage in public relations blitzes, often facilitated by professional media consultants. They hold press conferences, issue glossy publications in multiple languages, and contribute regular op-eds and articles to high-profile media outlets such as Ma’ariv, Haaretz, The New York Times, and Huffington Post. They regularly submit reports at the UN and send representatives to conferences in Europe and America. B’Tselem has a growing lobbying office in Washington and a representative in the UK.
NGO Monitor researchers have analyzed NIF funding practices for years. While the organization does some positive work in Israel that should be applauded, it refuses to engage in debate regarding several of its grantees that demonize Israel at the UN, support boycott and divestment campaigns, promote “lawfare” cases against Israeli officials, and even advocate erasing the Jewish character of the state. Significantly, many NIF donors are unaware of these activities. NIF has rebuffed all of NGO Monitor’s attempts to discuss appropriate “red lines” for the groups they fund.
Perhaps if NIF would stop name-calling and threatening lawsuits, the path would be open for a constructive debate about the role several NIF-supported NGOs have played in the demonization of Israel, and their exploitation by reactionary and totalitarian forces at the UN. Instead of blocking healthy discussion, NIF and its grantees should welcome this conversation - a conversation that would benefit NIF donors, the Israeli public and, ultimately, Israeli democracy.
The writer, Anne Herzberg, is the legal adviser of NGO Monitor.
View the article at Israel Behind the News
It’s strange that groups claiming to be well-versed in human rights seem so unfamiliar with the concept of free speech.
Talkbacks (1)
Those who make a full-time pursuit of criticizing others probably should grow thicker skin. Yet the New Israel Fund (NIF) and its NGO grantees have launched a thin-skinned offensive against an Israeli student group that criticized them. And they have dragged NGO Monitor into the fray.
As soon as Im Tirtzu released its report detailing how Israeli human rights organizations contributed to the Goldstone Report, NIF backers unleashed ad hominem attacks against the student group and against NGO Monitor (though we were not involved in the report). NIF has threatened to sue Im Tirtzu and any newspaper that repeats its findings. It also sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calling NGO Monitor “the rotten fruit of Israeli democracy.”
The record needs to be set straight regarding many troubling aspects of NIF’s combative reaction. To avert criticism of their activities, many of the non-governmental organizations highlighted in Im Tirtzu’s report - such as B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel - are promoting the canard that if only Israel had cooperated with Richard Goldstone and his UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war, his report would not have been as outrageously one-sided as it turned out to be.
In truth, there is no evidence that Israeli participation in the Goldstone mission would have changed the outcome of the widely panned report.
Goldstone’s mission was the product of a political war conducted against Israel in the UN Human Rights Council. Led by some of the world’s most abusive regimes - including China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia - this corrupt body has ignored mass atrocities such as the genocide in Darfur, the slaughter of more than 25,000 Sri Lankans and the forced starvation and enslavement of North Koreans. Indeed, the Goldstone mission was created by the Organization of the Islamic Conference to deflect attention from the horrific abuses of its member states and their supporters. In fact, according to the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Goldstone’s mission was financed by the Arab League.
FOR HIS part, Goldstone went along with the farce. Where facts exonerating the IDF existed - whether from the UN, the Israeli Foreign Ministry or independent sources - Goldstone apparently ignored or twisted such evidence, choosing instead to credit Hamas sources.
Israeli NGOs played a central role in laying the foundation for Goldstone’s untenable report. During the fighting in Gaza, these groups issued nonstop allegations of “war crimes,” “collective punishment” and intentional murder of civilians. They delivered countless publications containing speculative and unconfirmed claims used to bolster the HRC’s predetermined conclusions. Much of the Goldstone Report was based directly on these inflammatory charges.
Rather than admit their role, these organizations now seek to absolve themselves of responsibility. While NGO assertions of Goldstone’s fairness are perhaps rooted in naiveté, the attempts by the NIF and its grantees to muzzle critics are far more pernicious. Since NGO Monitor first raised the issue of European government funding for supposedly “nongovernmental” organizations (many of which also receive financial and other support from the NIF), these groups have resorted to childish attacks. They have bizarrely characterized NGO Monitor as “extremist” and “right-wing” (whatever those terms mean), and complained that simply reporting on their funding and activities amounts to “repression of dissent.”
But the right of expression always comes with the potential for disapproval. It is strange that groups claiming to be so well-versed in human rights seem so unfamiliar with the concept of free speech.
These attacks must not divert attention from the massive power that NIF and its beneficiaries wield. NIF has an annual budget of $32 million. Its Israeli grantees also receive tens of millions annually from the EU, European governments, the US-based Ford Foundation and George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
NIF-funded NGOs regularly engage in public relations blitzes, often facilitated by professional media consultants. They hold press conferences, issue glossy publications in multiple languages, and contribute regular op-eds and articles to high-profile media outlets such as Ma’ariv, Haaretz, The New York Times, and Huffington Post. They regularly submit reports at the UN and send representatives to conferences in Europe and America. B’Tselem has a growing lobbying office in Washington and a representative in the UK.
NGO Monitor researchers have analyzed NIF funding practices for years. While the organization does some positive work in Israel that should be applauded, it refuses to engage in debate regarding several of its grantees that demonize Israel at the UN, support boycott and divestment campaigns, promote “lawfare” cases against Israeli officials, and even advocate erasing the Jewish character of the state. Significantly, many NIF donors are unaware of these activities. NIF has rebuffed all of NGO Monitor’s attempts to discuss appropriate “red lines” for the groups they fund.
Perhaps if NIF would stop name-calling and threatening lawsuits, the path would be open for a constructive debate about the role several NIF-supported NGOs have played in the demonization of Israel, and their exploitation by reactionary and totalitarian forces at the UN. Instead of blocking healthy discussion, NIF and its grantees should welcome this conversation - a conversation that would benefit NIF donors, the Israeli public and, ultimately, Israeli democracy.
The writer, Anne Herzberg, is the legal adviser of NGO Monitor.
View the article at Israel Behind the News
Friday, January 29, 2010
INVESTIGATION OF THE NEW ISRAEL FUND
by Ben Caspit
Maariv daily Israeli newspaper, Jan 29 2010
Meet Ron Shuval. He is 29, married plus two, lives in Ramat Hasharon, secular, served in the Armored Corps, works in high-tech. He has a BA in international relations and philosophy, an MA in Jewish thought from Hebrew University. He is also the chairman and founder of Im Tirtzu which defines itself as a “centrist extra-parliamentary movement that strives to strengthen the values of Zionism in Israel and to renew and reinstate Zionist discourse, thinking and ideology in order to secure the future of the Jewish people and the State of Israel and strengthen Israeli society in the challenges it faces.” A young organization, not big, but active and feisty. That is one side.
What is the other side? One of the largest, most established, most active and well known philanthropic funds in Israel. The New Israel Fund. It is registered in the United States, it fosters and supporters Israeli non-profit organizations and other organizations. Since beginning to work in Israel, it has distributed USD 140 million to various organizations, which is over NIS 0.5 billion. An enormous sum. This is how the fund defines itself on its web site: “The New Israel Fund (NIF) is the leading organization committed to democratic change within Israel. Since 1979, NIF has fought for social justice and equality for all Israelis. We believe that Israel can live up to its founders' vision of a state that ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, without regard to religion, race or gender.
Widely credited with building Israel's progressive civil society from scratch, we have provided more than $200 million to more than 800 cutting-edge organizations since our inception. What's more, through our action arm, SHATIL, we mentor, train and lead Israeli civil society in an ongoing struggle to empower the underprivileged.
We fight inequality, injustice and extremism because we understand that justice is the precondition for a successful democracy - and the only lasting road to peace. [...]”
In the next few days, Im Tirtzu will launch a harsh billboard campaign against the New Israel Fund and against its president, former MK Prof. Naomi Chazan, from the bastions of Meretz and a veteran social activist. “Naomi Chazan-Goldstone,” she will be called, with a large horn coming out of her forehead. The headline: according to a special report that Im Tirtzu will release in the next few days, the New Israel Fund supports a great many of the Israeli organizations that provided the Goldstone commission with the materials that incriminated the IDF. The Goldstone report contains 1,208 footnotes, with 1,377 citations of various sources of information. Im Tirtzu checked all of them and reached an amazing conclusion: nearly half (42%) of the quotes in the Goldstone report from Israeli sources come from organizations that are supported by the New Israel Fund. When each of these negative quotes are isolated, with various allegations against the IDF and its commanders, this figure is even more amazing: 92% of them come from the same organizations. In other words: the New Israel Fund, according to Im Tirtzu, basically pumped up and financed, indirectly, the Goldstone commission and its vicious report. Goldstone maligned, and these organizations provided him with the references. This relates both to advocating the establishment of a UN investigative committee before it was established, providing incriminating material during its work, and praising it and fanning the flames afterwards. All this, as said, with the help of millions of dollars, money that the New Israel Fund gives to these Israeli post-Zionism organizations every year. You could call them, “thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth from thee [Isaiah, 49, 17].
And that’s not all. The Im Tirtzu’s report details other influences of the organizations supported by the New Israel Fund: Adalah, for example, asked the UN to force Israel to stop Operation Cast Lead and accused it of war crimes. Major web sites shared by a number of organizations joined together in PR work and accused the IDF and the State of Israel of war crimes, called for a boycott and sanctions and demanded an international commission of inquiry.
The New Israel Fund’s response: the New Israel Fund is proud of its role in supporting domestic critical organizations in Israel. This is a patriotic role of the first order, because these organizations are important to the continued existence of Israeli democracy, and for shoring its international standing at a time it is under strong attack.
Maariv daily Israeli newspaper, Jan 29 2010
Meet Ron Shuval. He is 29, married plus two, lives in Ramat Hasharon, secular, served in the Armored Corps, works in high-tech. He has a BA in international relations and philosophy, an MA in Jewish thought from Hebrew University. He is also the chairman and founder of Im Tirtzu which defines itself as a “centrist extra-parliamentary movement that strives to strengthen the values of Zionism in Israel and to renew and reinstate Zionist discourse, thinking and ideology in order to secure the future of the Jewish people and the State of Israel and strengthen Israeli society in the challenges it faces.” A young organization, not big, but active and feisty. That is one side.
What is the other side? One of the largest, most established, most active and well known philanthropic funds in Israel. The New Israel Fund. It is registered in the United States, it fosters and supporters Israeli non-profit organizations and other organizations. Since beginning to work in Israel, it has distributed USD 140 million to various organizations, which is over NIS 0.5 billion. An enormous sum. This is how the fund defines itself on its web site: “The New Israel Fund (NIF) is the leading organization committed to democratic change within Israel. Since 1979, NIF has fought for social justice and equality for all Israelis. We believe that Israel can live up to its founders' vision of a state that ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, without regard to religion, race or gender.
Widely credited with building Israel's progressive civil society from scratch, we have provided more than $200 million to more than 800 cutting-edge organizations since our inception. What's more, through our action arm, SHATIL, we mentor, train and lead Israeli civil society in an ongoing struggle to empower the underprivileged.
We fight inequality, injustice and extremism because we understand that justice is the precondition for a successful democracy - and the only lasting road to peace. [...]”
In the next few days, Im Tirtzu will launch a harsh billboard campaign against the New Israel Fund and against its president, former MK Prof. Naomi Chazan, from the bastions of Meretz and a veteran social activist. “Naomi Chazan-Goldstone,” she will be called, with a large horn coming out of her forehead. The headline: according to a special report that Im Tirtzu will release in the next few days, the New Israel Fund supports a great many of the Israeli organizations that provided the Goldstone commission with the materials that incriminated the IDF. The Goldstone report contains 1,208 footnotes, with 1,377 citations of various sources of information. Im Tirtzu checked all of them and reached an amazing conclusion: nearly half (42%) of the quotes in the Goldstone report from Israeli sources come from organizations that are supported by the New Israel Fund. When each of these negative quotes are isolated, with various allegations against the IDF and its commanders, this figure is even more amazing: 92% of them come from the same organizations. In other words: the New Israel Fund, according to Im Tirtzu, basically pumped up and financed, indirectly, the Goldstone commission and its vicious report. Goldstone maligned, and these organizations provided him with the references. This relates both to advocating the establishment of a UN investigative committee before it was established, providing incriminating material during its work, and praising it and fanning the flames afterwards. All this, as said, with the help of millions of dollars, money that the New Israel Fund gives to these Israeli post-Zionism organizations every year. You could call them, “thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth from thee [Isaiah, 49, 17].
And that’s not all. The Im Tirtzu’s report details other influences of the organizations supported by the New Israel Fund: Adalah, for example, asked the UN to force Israel to stop Operation Cast Lead and accused it of war crimes. Major web sites shared by a number of organizations joined together in PR work and accused the IDF and the State of Israel of war crimes, called for a boycott and sanctions and demanded an international commission of inquiry.
The New Israel Fund’s response: the New Israel Fund is proud of its role in supporting domestic critical organizations in Israel. This is a patriotic role of the first order, because these organizations are important to the continued existence of Israeli democracy, and for shoring its international standing at a time it is under strong attack.
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