This video spreads the lie that reporters cannot enter Gaza.
The video excuses stone throwing, not mentioning that stones are lethal weapons.
"Credibility" of this video:
Produced by Bitselem. Funded by The New Israel Fund and European governments - in cooperation with Time Magazine.
Showing posts with label New Israel Fund. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Israel Fund. Show all posts
Friday, April 16, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
A Call to Investigate the New Israel Fund
By Abraham H. Miller
Like every person who reads the Jewish Forward, I received an email solicitation on April 1, 2010, from Daniel Sokatch, chief executive officer of the New Israel Fund (NIF). If I want to save Israeli democracy from the threat of the ultra-orthodox and the settlers, the solicitation informs me, I should sign an email petition for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
No, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, and I immediately thought about who would save Israel from Daniel Sokatch and the NIF.
The NIF and the NGOs it funds are under attack in the Israeli Knesset. Sokatch wants American Jews to pressure the Israeli government to call off its investigation of the relationship between the NIF‘s NGO recipients and the infamous Goldstone Report. This is an uphill struggle for NIF, since the loudest calls for investigation are from Kadima, the Israeli centrist party.
As someone who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has experienced firsthand the effects of Sokatch’s work here as the former CEO of the Jewish Community Federation, I strongly believe most of the members of this Jewish community would eagerly sign a petition that would encourage the Israeli government to pursue its investigation with all deliberate speed. If NIF is innocent of the accusations made against it, let it be exonerated within the democratic process it supports.
Sokatch was hired as CEO of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation because some community leaders believed that a person with an ultra-progressive agenda could mobilize donors who shared his views. These community leaders also believed that exposure to the real world of pluralistic community politics would mature a person with well-honed leadership skills who was perceived as highly intelligent and talented, but politically naive.
None of that happened. There really aren’t a lot of George Soroses out there, even in Berkeley, and people who spend their time railing against capitalism never seem to become terribly successful businessmen. But the biggest disappointment to some was that Sokatch, despite his obvious talents, seemed stuck in his ultra-progressive ideology.
Sokatch left his position at the Jewish Community Federation after only fourteen months. He might have been on his way to different pastures anyhow, but what seemed to seal his fate was last year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Directed by Peter Stein, a man with an Israel-bashing agenda sustained by a compliant board, the festival showcased the crudely crafted documentary Rachel - a piece of vicious anti-Israel propaganda. The film lionized Rachel Corrie, the International Solidarity Movement militant who recklessly got in the way of an Israeli bulldozer.
Stein malevolently added insult to injury by giving the stage to Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s mother, who added to the propaganda value of the film and took a few softball questions from Stein that would have embarrassed even Larry King.
A substantial segment of the film’s audience was comprised of Israel-bashers who hurled anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic epithets at those who challenged the so-called “documentary.” Free speech did not escape the heckler’s veto that day.
Local Zionists demanded that the Jewish Community Federation, which contributes money to the film festival, do something about the outrage. Instead, Sokatch - who was also on the board of the festival - defended it.
A YouTube video of the event, narrated by popular San Francisco radio personality John Rothman, made the email rounds and further underscored the outrage. The video showed in graphic detail the crude behavior of the progressive Hitler Youth that had descended on the festival. Lawrence White, a prominent local physician, echoed the sentiments of many when he squarely placed the blame for the rift in our community on Daniel Sokatch for continuing to defend the showing of Rachel.
The film festival was not Sokatch’s only legacy. Recently, the Associated Students of the University of California at Berkeley passed a divestiture resolution against Israel. The resolution was sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, routinely described as the most vicious anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic, group on campus. The progressive Jewish student group, Kesher Enoshi, has worked hand-in-glove with Students for Justice in Palestine. For years, the pro-Zionist students have argued unsuccessfully that Kesher Enoshi had no place at Hillel because of Hillel’s pro-Zionist mandate.
The Jewish Community Federation is a substantial contributor to Hillel. Sokatch, as CEO of the Jewish Community Federation, was a supporter of both Kesher Enoshi and their place in Hillel. The NIF’s view of Kesher Enoshi was summed up to me by one of NIF’s local officers:
They are a group of wonderfully passionate people who are working out how to support Israel in a way consistent with their values. We should encourage their connection to Israel, which is all too rare.
The wonderfully passionate group with a connection to Israel worked with Students for Justice in Palestine to pass the divestiture resolution, and tried to overturn the student president’s veto of the resolution.
NIF’s support recently manifested elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay area, with Dalit Baum and theCoalition of Women for Peace (CWP) - an NGO supported by NIF. Baum, an Israeli, spoke in February at an event sponsored by the Students for Justice in Palestine. At the door, attendees were asked to sign a pledge that they would boycott Israeli goods. Subsequently, they were given a glossy brochure that asked for donations for the CWP, which were to be sent to the NIF’s Washington office.
The brochure soliciting contributions lists eleven CWP allies, such as Machsom Watch, which interferes with Israeli soldiers at checkpoints; Women in Black, which demonstrates against Israel’s right to self-defense; New Profile, which encourages desertion from the Israeli Defense Forces; and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, a group that sponsors lectures by Anna Baltzer.
She argues that violence against Israel is a natural reaction to Israeli oppression of Arabs.
Investigative journalist Lee Kaplan, who attended the meeting, notes that Baum boasted of causing Israelis to lose billions in export and investment revenue, and that her campaign is directed not just at the territories but at Israel itself.
If you object to giving money to groups that propose to cripple the Jewish state economically and interfere with its security, and network with other such groups, then it might be appropriate to send Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an email telling him that there is no greater antiseptic for a democratic society than the sunlight of public exposure, and no group should be immunized from it.
Investigate the New Israel Fund.
Abraham H. Miller is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Former Head of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association.
See the original article at Pajamas Media
See this article at Israel Behind the News
Like every person who reads the Jewish Forward, I received an email solicitation on April 1, 2010, from Daniel Sokatch, chief executive officer of the New Israel Fund (NIF). If I want to save Israeli democracy from the threat of the ultra-orthodox and the settlers, the solicitation informs me, I should sign an email petition for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
No, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, and I immediately thought about who would save Israel from Daniel Sokatch and the NIF.
The NIF and the NGOs it funds are under attack in the Israeli Knesset. Sokatch wants American Jews to pressure the Israeli government to call off its investigation of the relationship between the NIF‘s NGO recipients and the infamous Goldstone Report. This is an uphill struggle for NIF, since the loudest calls for investigation are from Kadima, the Israeli centrist party.
As someone who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has experienced firsthand the effects of Sokatch’s work here as the former CEO of the Jewish Community Federation, I strongly believe most of the members of this Jewish community would eagerly sign a petition that would encourage the Israeli government to pursue its investigation with all deliberate speed. If NIF is innocent of the accusations made against it, let it be exonerated within the democratic process it supports.
Sokatch was hired as CEO of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation because some community leaders believed that a person with an ultra-progressive agenda could mobilize donors who shared his views. These community leaders also believed that exposure to the real world of pluralistic community politics would mature a person with well-honed leadership skills who was perceived as highly intelligent and talented, but politically naive.
None of that happened. There really aren’t a lot of George Soroses out there, even in Berkeley, and people who spend their time railing against capitalism never seem to become terribly successful businessmen. But the biggest disappointment to some was that Sokatch, despite his obvious talents, seemed stuck in his ultra-progressive ideology.
Sokatch left his position at the Jewish Community Federation after only fourteen months. He might have been on his way to different pastures anyhow, but what seemed to seal his fate was last year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Directed by Peter Stein, a man with an Israel-bashing agenda sustained by a compliant board, the festival showcased the crudely crafted documentary Rachel - a piece of vicious anti-Israel propaganda. The film lionized Rachel Corrie, the International Solidarity Movement militant who recklessly got in the way of an Israeli bulldozer.
Stein malevolently added insult to injury by giving the stage to Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s mother, who added to the propaganda value of the film and took a few softball questions from Stein that would have embarrassed even Larry King.
A substantial segment of the film’s audience was comprised of Israel-bashers who hurled anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic epithets at those who challenged the so-called “documentary.” Free speech did not escape the heckler’s veto that day.
Local Zionists demanded that the Jewish Community Federation, which contributes money to the film festival, do something about the outrage. Instead, Sokatch - who was also on the board of the festival - defended it.
A YouTube video of the event, narrated by popular San Francisco radio personality John Rothman, made the email rounds and further underscored the outrage. The video showed in graphic detail the crude behavior of the progressive Hitler Youth that had descended on the festival. Lawrence White, a prominent local physician, echoed the sentiments of many when he squarely placed the blame for the rift in our community on Daniel Sokatch for continuing to defend the showing of Rachel.
The film festival was not Sokatch’s only legacy. Recently, the Associated Students of the University of California at Berkeley passed a divestiture resolution against Israel. The resolution was sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, routinely described as the most vicious anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic, group on campus. The progressive Jewish student group, Kesher Enoshi, has worked hand-in-glove with Students for Justice in Palestine. For years, the pro-Zionist students have argued unsuccessfully that Kesher Enoshi had no place at Hillel because of Hillel’s pro-Zionist mandate.
The Jewish Community Federation is a substantial contributor to Hillel. Sokatch, as CEO of the Jewish Community Federation, was a supporter of both Kesher Enoshi and their place in Hillel. The NIF’s view of Kesher Enoshi was summed up to me by one of NIF’s local officers:
They are a group of wonderfully passionate people who are working out how to support Israel in a way consistent with their values. We should encourage their connection to Israel, which is all too rare.
The wonderfully passionate group with a connection to Israel worked with Students for Justice in Palestine to pass the divestiture resolution, and tried to overturn the student president’s veto of the resolution.
NIF’s support recently manifested elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay area, with Dalit Baum and theCoalition of Women for Peace (CWP) - an NGO supported by NIF. Baum, an Israeli, spoke in February at an event sponsored by the Students for Justice in Palestine. At the door, attendees were asked to sign a pledge that they would boycott Israeli goods. Subsequently, they were given a glossy brochure that asked for donations for the CWP, which were to be sent to the NIF’s Washington office.
The brochure soliciting contributions lists eleven CWP allies, such as Machsom Watch, which interferes with Israeli soldiers at checkpoints; Women in Black, which demonstrates against Israel’s right to self-defense; New Profile, which encourages desertion from the Israeli Defense Forces; and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, a group that sponsors lectures by Anna Baltzer.
She argues that violence against Israel is a natural reaction to Israeli oppression of Arabs.
Investigative journalist Lee Kaplan, who attended the meeting, notes that Baum boasted of causing Israelis to lose billions in export and investment revenue, and that her campaign is directed not just at the territories but at Israel itself.
If you object to giving money to groups that propose to cripple the Jewish state economically and interfere with its security, and network with other such groups, then it might be appropriate to send Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an email telling him that there is no greater antiseptic for a democratic society than the sunlight of public exposure, and no group should be immunized from it.
Investigate the New Israel Fund.
Abraham H. Miller is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Former Head of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association.
See the original article at Pajamas Media
See this article at Israel Behind the News
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Special Report: The influence of New Israel Fund organizations on the Goldstone Report
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
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
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
NIF-Funded NGOs: Goldstone’s Building Blocks
From NGO Monitor
NIF-funded groups and their publications were featured centrally in the Goldstone report, which focused on alleged Israeli “war crimes” in the 2009 Gaza war. The report referenced B’Tselem more than 56 times; Adalah, 38; and Breaking the Silence, 27.
Many of these citations referred to speculative issues unrelated to the conflict in Gaza, seeking to brand Israeli democracy as “repressive” and to widen the scope of the condemnations.
Since the initial publication of the Goldstone report on September 15, 2009, these NIF-supported NGOs - including B’Tselem, ACRI, Gisha, PHR-I, and Yesh Din - have continued supporting Goldstone and lobbying the governments of the United States, the European Union, and others to legitimize the report’s extreme biases and endorse its recommendations.
In response to the controversy over their support for Goldstone, these organizations and the NIF launched an offensive against critics. NIF supporters accused NGO Monitor of “silenc[ing] expression,” and being “extremist,” “incendiary,” the “rotten fruit of Israeli democracy,” and “McCarthyite.”
In addition to involvement with Goldstone, several organizations funded by NIF, including Adalah, campaign against the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish democratic state. Others such as Mossawa and Coalition of Women for Peace are active in worldwide boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting Israel.
The political impact of NIF-supported NGOs, based on NIF’s annual budget of $32 million, is bolstered by additional funds from European governments and church groups that allocate funds to the same recipient organizations.
Contents:
1) NIF-grantees and the delegitimization of Israel
2) NIF-funded NGOs and the Goldstone indictment
3) Summary of activities by 20 major NIF grantees active in the Arab-Israeli conflict
Introduction:
The New Israel Fund (NIF) supports more than 100 organizations involved in a wide range of areas in Israel, including political activism related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As highlighted recently, NIF-funded groups and their publications were featured centrally in the Goldstone report, which focused on alleged Israeli “war crimes” in the 2009 Gaza war. During the fighting, as shown in NGO Monitor analyses, these NGOs issued daily reports claiming to document Israeli “human rights” violations. NGO officials, widely quoted in the media, lobbied intensively for an international inquiry.
After the Goldstone commission was established, three major and long-time NIF grantees (Public Committee against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and Adalah) participated in a May 2009 NGO “town hall meeting” in Geneva that helped shape the course of Goldstone’s ”investigation”. In addition, seven NIF-funded NGOs (including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Gisha, HaMoked, and Yesh Din) submitted a joint statement to Goldstone, and a representative from PCATI “testified” at the July 2009 Goldstone hearings, referring to “collective punishment” and “[Palestinian] martyrs.”
The resulting Goldstone report referenced B’Tselem more than 56 times; Adalah, 38; and Breaking the Silence, 27. Significantly, many of these citations referred to speculative issues unrelated to the conflict in Gaza, seeking to brand Israeli democracy as “repressive,” and to widen the scope of the condemnations and the resulting political campaigns.
In turn, B’Tselem, Adalah, and PHR-I, among others, have lobbied Israeli and foreign governments to support Goldstone’s report and its recommendations. Adalah, for example, joined the Palestinian NGOs Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in a press release urging countries to “re-evaluate their relationship with Israel.”
In response to the controversy over their support for Goldstone, these organizations and the NIF launched an offensive against critics, including NGO Monitor, that brought the relationship to light. Through coarse smears, NIF supporters accuse NGO Monitor of “silenc[ing] expression,” and being “extremist,” “incendiary,” and the “rotten fruit of Israeli democracy,” and “McCarthyite.”
NGO Monitor’s many calls for debates with NIF officials and grantees have been rebuffed. In July 2009, an NIF employee posted a vulgar cartoon on his blog directed at NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg in July 2009, and in 2008 another NIF grantee frivolously sued NGO Monitor for libel - apparently, to quash reporting and public debate on its activities.
1. NIF-grantees and the delegitimization of Israel
In addition to involvement with Goldstone, several organizations funded by NIF campaign against the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish democratic state, and are active in worldwide boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and similar campaigns targeting Israel.
NIF has justified its funding decisions, claiming to promote pluralism and dialogue, and to support free expression of differing views in Israel. In contrast, NGO Monitor’s research demonstrates the damage to democracy resulting from these NIF-supported NGO activities, and the lack of effective guidelines in NIF’s funding processes. From correspondence, it is clear that many NIF donors, both individuals and via Jewish federations, are unaware of these political campaigns.
The political impact of NIF-supported NGOs, based on an annual budget of $32 million, is increased via additional funds from European governments and church groups that allocate funds to the same recipient organizations. Through the media, via legal processes, and elsewhere, NIF grantees are therefore in a position to manipulate the marketplace of ideas to a degree that is entirely disproportionate to the general level of support for their agendas.
This preliminary report presents an overview of how NIF-funded NGOs contributed to the Goldstone Report and promoted it after publication. Also included are brief summaries of the activities of 20 NGOs funded by NIF.
2. NIF-funded NGOs and the Goldstone indictment
Written submission
A group of Israeli NGOs -ACRI, Adalah, Bimkom, Gisha, HaMoked, PHR-I, PCATI, and Yesh Din - submitted a one-sided written statement to the Goldstone Commission (June 30, 2009) that does not address alleged Hamas war crimes, “but rather offers our own distinct perspective - human rights violations for which Israel must be held accountable.”[1 ] This NGO document makes entirely speculative assertions about the motivation for the IDF operation against Hamas, claiming that “[t]o the extent that this was planned as a punitive operation which main purpose was not the achievement of actual military objectives, but the inflicting of deliberate damage as a deterrent and punitive measure” - despite their lacking requisite information to make such an assertion.[2 ]
The submission accuses the IDF of having “deliberately and knowingly shelled civilian institutions,” supporting the coalition’s incorrect legal claim that “Israel deviated from the principle that allows harm only to military objectives, and carried out strikes against civilian sites in an effort to achieve political ends.”[3 ] References and evidence are missing for many accusations, such as the allegation that “[m]any prisoners... were held in pits in the ground... apparently dug by the army”[4 ]; details are sourced to “information in our possession.”[5 ]
NGO support for Goldstone
Since April 2009, when Judge Richard Goldstone was appointed to lead the UN Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission into the Gaza war, NIF-funded NGOs were among those that led the campaign demanding that the Israeli government cooperate with the investigation, supporting misleading claims that the mandate was “balanced” and the panel was fair.
In turn, Goldstone bolstered the credibility of these groups by relying heavily on their publications, uncritically repeating claims, calling NGO activists to “testify,” praising their “high professional standard” while working in “extremely difficult circumstances,” and defending them against alleged “repression” from the Israeli government.
Since the initial publication of the Goldstone report on September 15, 2009, and throughout the proceedings at the UN, these NIF-supported NGOs have continued supporting Goldstone and lobbying the governments of the United States, the European Union, and others to legitimize the report’s extreme biases and endorse its recommendations.
B’Tselem, which receives a substantial percentage of its budget from NIF, the EU, and European governments, has been campaigning against the IDF and demanding an “independent and credible investigation ” of the Gaza war since January 2009, urged Israel to cooperate with Goldstone, and “provided assistance to the investigative staff of the Goldstone mission from the beginning to the end of its research.”
Disingenuously, and erasing her own role in the process, B’Tselem Executive Director Jessica Montell claimed that “Israel has only itself to blame ” for the report’s conclusions and recommendations. She also stated that Israel was “shoot[ing] the messenger and bury[ing] its head in the sand.”
When the report was released, B’Tselem mildly criticized Goldstone for “framing of Israel’s military operation as part of ‘an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience’” and “the very careful phrasing regarding Hamas abuses.” However, this NIF-funded political NGO continues to “advocate[] for... its principal recommendation: that Israel investigate suspicions that its forces breached international humanitarian law.”
Other NIF grantees - Adalah, ACRI, B’Tselem, Gisha, HaMoked, PHR-I, PCATI, and Yesh Din - issued a joint statement calling on Israel to “take the report seriously” and “cooperate with an international monitoring mechanism that would guarantee both the independence of that investigation and the implementation of its conclusions.”
3. Summary of activities by 20 major NIF grantees active in the Arab-Israeli conflict
•Adala h (NIF grants authorized in 2006-2008: $1,045,292) advances “war crimes” charges against Israel at the UN Human Rights Council, in reports cited in the media, in Israeli courts, and in campaigns conducted with other political NGOs. Adalah officials promote the false claim that “the Israeli legal and judicial systems have consistently failed in providing any legal remedies to the Palestinian people.” Adalah, itself, has prevailed several times in cases filed in Israeli courts.
In 2007, Adalah proposed a constitution for Israel that calls for replacing the Jewish framework of the state with a “democratic, bilingual and multicultural” framework. This “Democratic Constitution ” - based on the concept of “a one-state solution” - would permit Jewish immigration for “humanitarian reasons” only.
Adalah campaigns against national community service for Arabs in Israel, even within the Arab sector, although such service is widely supported by Israeli Arabs. In a 2005 publication, for instance, Adalah claimed “national/military service in Israel... constitutes the Jewish Zionist identity” and forces Arabs to “to submit to a rationale that further grounds discrimination and oppression.”
Adalah officials, in conjunction with radical Palestinian NGO Al-Haq, wrote and edited large portions of a May 2009 publication, initiated by anti-Israel ideologue John Dugard, entitled “Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel´s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law.” The document refers to Israeli occupation as a “colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid.”
Goldstone excerpt: “Not allowing prisoners to use the telephone “violates detainees’ right to dignity and their right to family life, and ‘transforms their imprisonment to a humiliating and degrading experience that contradicts international norms and conventions.” (para. 1458)
• Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $285,509) is a highly politicized umbrella organization that systematically condemns Israeli policies. CWP projects include Machsom Watch (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $165,198) and others that use “apartheid” and “Naqba” rhetoric to delegitimize Israel.
CWP is responsible for the “Who Profits? ” divestment project tracking Israeli and international corporations that allegedly “are directly involved in the occupation.” Who Profits? influenced the anti-Israel divestment campaign in Norway and a similar project in the UK.
In 2009, CWP published an article asking: “How is it that our consolation is that we hurt, we demolished, we killed?.... The truth is that we really do like wars, that's our language, that's our culture... we will find all the explanations in the world to justify any war. Even this one, the spare one, in Gaza.” During the war, CWP joined the “Remove the Siege-Stop the War ” coalition, and organized protests against Israeli policy. It also participated in public commemorations of the “59th anniversary of the Naqba” on Israel’s Independence Day in 2007.
Goldstone excerpt (Machsom Watch): “The restriction on the ability to move freely, without obstacle or delay, or without another person’s authorization, is often perceived as a humiliating experience.” (para. 1509)
• Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $503,537) supports often violent protests at the security barrier near Bil’in as an “act of solidarity with the people who fight against the occupation and the building of the wall.” PHR-I campaigned in international forums against Israel’s actions during the Gaza War, appearing before the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People andlobbying the European Union to support condemnations of Israel. This NGO was a major source of accusations contained in the Goldstone report.
Goldstone excerpt: “The Mission also investigated and confirmed allegations about the use of weapons whose potential long-term impact on individual victims’ health raises concern. They include allegations of the use of weapons containing chemical pollutants such as tungsten and white phosphorus.” (para. 1258)[6 ]
• Breaking the Silence (BtS) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $200,855) says it “voices the experiences ” of Israeli soldiers “in order to force Israeli society to address the reality which it created.” Although claiming to target “Israeli society,” this NGO’s lobbying and media advocacy focus on international audiences. Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz: “Breaking the Silence... has a clear political agenda, and can no longer be classed as a ‘human rights organization.’”
In addition to collecting anonymous testimony from soldiers some of it based on hearsay and widely cited as evidence of “war crimes” in Gaza by publications including the Goldstone report BtS conducts tours to Hebron and the South Hebron Hills to support its claim that in Hebron there is “a reality of Apartheid and a kind of ‘ethnic cleansing.’”
Goldstone excerpt: “Breaking the Silence issued a statement in which it accused the Foreign Ministry of a ‘witch-hunt’, saying that it testified to the erosion of the ‘democratic culture’ in Israel.” (para. 1731)
•B’Tselem (grants authorized in 2006-1008: $785,285) “acts primarily to change Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories,” a political objective bolstered by B’Tselem’s office in Washington, DC, which brings its agenda directly to U.S. officials. While widely considered Israel’s premier human-rights organization, B’Tselem has faced serious criticism for its misrepresentations of international law, inaccurate research, skewed statistics (includingcasualty lists ), and selective coverage of violations against Israelis. These problematic methodologies reinforce the Palestinian narrative of victimization and portray Israel as the sole impediment to peace.
Goldstone excerpt: “In the face of the recently increase in violence by the Israeli security forces in the West Bank, B’Tselem stated that condemnations by Ministers and other officials “remain solely declarative. Security forces, meanwhile, misusing their power, continue to abuse and beat Palestinians, among them, minors.... If a message is sent to security forces, it is that even if the establishment does not accept acts of violence, it will not take measures against those who commit them. The effect of such a message is that the lives and dignity of Palestinians are meaningless and that security forces can continue, pursuant to the function they serve, to abuse, humiliate, and beat Palestinians with whom they come into contact.” (para. 1405)
• Bimkom (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $923,221)aims “to achieve the right to equality and social justice in matters of planning, development, and the allocation of land resources” and to “[assist] communities and minorities affected by social and economic disadvantage.” In reality, Bimkom promotes the Palestinian narrative. Activities include acampaign against the security barrier ; petitions against “collective punishment ” in Gaza; and input to press releases, reports, and a website detailing allegations of Israeli “violations” during the fighting in Gaza - most of which involved issues outside Bimkom’s remit and stated mandate.
Goldstone excerpt: “In a recent report reviewed by the Mission, Bimkom concluded that the Israeli Civil Administration applied ‘a deliberate and consistent policy in Area C with the goal of restricting Palestinian construction and development and limiting its spatial dispersion.’” (para. 1539)
• Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $48,888) claims to campaign against torture and for prisoner rights. PCATI’s reports condemn alleged Israeli abuses, and its officials appear before international frameworks to promote anti-Israel agendas. In 2009, a PCATI official testified in Geneva before the UN’s Goldstone inquiry on the Gaza war, referring to Israel’s “unacceptable collective punishment” and to Palestinian “martyrs.” In a 2009 report submitted to the UN Committee Against Torture, PCATI accused Israel of attacks on “civilians and civilian objects” during the Gaza fighting. The group appears to have participated in only one statement in support of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas in June 2006 and consistently denied his rights under the Geneva Conventions.
Goldstone excerpt: “A PCATI lawyer representing detainees, Mr. Bader, who spoke at the Mission’s public hearings in Geneva, interviewed a number of the detainees in Israeli prisons and relayed their testimonies. These include stories from prisoners who said they were used as human shields or held in sandpits.” (para. 1110)
•Gisha (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $35,625) promotes the false claim that Gaza remains “occupied” under international law, and that Israel has a legal obligation to grant unfettered “freedom of movement” to Gaza residents. Gisha’s claims were quoted in the Goldstone report in order to accuse Israel of enacting policies “in the pursuance by Israel of political goals at the expense of the civilian population, in blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
Gisha’s highly publicized 2008 campaign condemning Israel for barring Palestinian students’ travel from Gaza to Israel and to the United States under the Fulbright program erased Israel’s legitimated security concerns. Indeed, most of these “students” were refused entry by the American government on security grounds. In addition, in frequent condemnations of Israeli policy on Gaza, Gisha has largely ignored the tons of humanitarian aid provided by Israel despite massive rocket barrages from Gaza.
Goldstone excerpt: “Gisha call[s] this regulation an additional measure in a deliberate Israeli policy to deepen the separation between the West Bank and Gaza ‘in the pursuance by Israel of political goals at the expense of the civilian population, in blatant violation of international humanitarian law.’” (para. 1527)
•HaMoked (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $499,765) accuses Israel of “war crimes,” with only a token reference to Hamas’ “sporadic” rocket fire against Israeli civilians. HaMokedcalled the Gaza war a “punitive operation,” and promoted the unverified claim that “[m]any prisoners... were held in pits in the ground... apparently dug by the army.” During the Gaza war, HaMoked distorted international law to criminalize Israeli actions, falsely claiming that “phosphorous and cluster bombs” are “illegal weapons prohibited by International Humanitarian Law.”
•Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $2,671,443) has a wide agenda in Israel, but frequently employs rhetoric that contributes to demonization and delegitimization. For example, its 2008 annual report labeled Israel’s policies in the West Bank “Apartheid,” and ACRI representatives have referred to “institutional racism” in Palestinian forums. Many legal claims in its reports are distortions or selective interpretations of international humanitarian law.
Goldstone excerpt: “In a report reviewed by the Mission, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel stated that, in Jerusalem “discrimination in planning and building, expropriation of lands, and minimal investment in physical infrastructure and government and municipal services - these are concrete expressions of an Israeli policy designed to secure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem and push Palestinian residents outside the city's borders.” (para. 1536)
• Ir Amim (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $958,237) focuses on “legal advocacy aimed at halting or mitigating unilateral actions that harm the fabric of life in Jerusalem, and create obstacles to reaching an agreed-upon future for the city and the region.” In reality, Ir Amimadvocates and campaigns exclusively for the Palestinian narrative on Jerusalem, adopting the offensive PLO rhetoric of “Judaization ”, and directing these efforts at influencing foreign journalists, diplomats, and opinion-makers.
View the report at Israel Behind the News.
NIF-funded groups and their publications were featured centrally in the Goldstone report, which focused on alleged Israeli “war crimes” in the 2009 Gaza war. The report referenced B’Tselem more than 56 times; Adalah, 38; and Breaking the Silence, 27.
Many of these citations referred to speculative issues unrelated to the conflict in Gaza, seeking to brand Israeli democracy as “repressive” and to widen the scope of the condemnations.
Since the initial publication of the Goldstone report on September 15, 2009, these NIF-supported NGOs - including B’Tselem, ACRI, Gisha, PHR-I, and Yesh Din - have continued supporting Goldstone and lobbying the governments of the United States, the European Union, and others to legitimize the report’s extreme biases and endorse its recommendations.
In response to the controversy over their support for Goldstone, these organizations and the NIF launched an offensive against critics. NIF supporters accused NGO Monitor of “silenc[ing] expression,” and being “extremist,” “incendiary,” the “rotten fruit of Israeli democracy,” and “McCarthyite.”
In addition to involvement with Goldstone, several organizations funded by NIF, including Adalah, campaign against the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish democratic state. Others such as Mossawa and Coalition of Women for Peace are active in worldwide boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting Israel.
The political impact of NIF-supported NGOs, based on NIF’s annual budget of $32 million, is bolstered by additional funds from European governments and church groups that allocate funds to the same recipient organizations.
Contents:
1) NIF-grantees and the delegitimization of Israel
2) NIF-funded NGOs and the Goldstone indictment
3) Summary of activities by 20 major NIF grantees active in the Arab-Israeli conflict
Introduction:
The New Israel Fund (NIF) supports more than 100 organizations involved in a wide range of areas in Israel, including political activism related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As highlighted recently, NIF-funded groups and their publications were featured centrally in the Goldstone report, which focused on alleged Israeli “war crimes” in the 2009 Gaza war. During the fighting, as shown in NGO Monitor analyses, these NGOs issued daily reports claiming to document Israeli “human rights” violations. NGO officials, widely quoted in the media, lobbied intensively for an international inquiry.
After the Goldstone commission was established, three major and long-time NIF grantees (Public Committee against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and Adalah) participated in a May 2009 NGO “town hall meeting” in Geneva that helped shape the course of Goldstone’s ”investigation”. In addition, seven NIF-funded NGOs (including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Gisha, HaMoked, and Yesh Din) submitted a joint statement to Goldstone, and a representative from PCATI “testified” at the July 2009 Goldstone hearings, referring to “collective punishment” and “[Palestinian] martyrs.”
The resulting Goldstone report referenced B’Tselem more than 56 times; Adalah, 38; and Breaking the Silence, 27. Significantly, many of these citations referred to speculative issues unrelated to the conflict in Gaza, seeking to brand Israeli democracy as “repressive,” and to widen the scope of the condemnations and the resulting political campaigns.
In turn, B’Tselem, Adalah, and PHR-I, among others, have lobbied Israeli and foreign governments to support Goldstone’s report and its recommendations. Adalah, for example, joined the Palestinian NGOs Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in a press release urging countries to “re-evaluate their relationship with Israel.”
In response to the controversy over their support for Goldstone, these organizations and the NIF launched an offensive against critics, including NGO Monitor, that brought the relationship to light. Through coarse smears, NIF supporters accuse NGO Monitor of “silenc[ing] expression,” and being “extremist,” “incendiary,” and the “rotten fruit of Israeli democracy,” and “McCarthyite.”
NGO Monitor’s many calls for debates with NIF officials and grantees have been rebuffed. In July 2009, an NIF employee posted a vulgar cartoon on his blog directed at NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg in July 2009, and in 2008 another NIF grantee frivolously sued NGO Monitor for libel - apparently, to quash reporting and public debate on its activities.
1. NIF-grantees and the delegitimization of Israel
In addition to involvement with Goldstone, several organizations funded by NIF campaign against the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish democratic state, and are active in worldwide boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and similar campaigns targeting Israel.
NIF has justified its funding decisions, claiming to promote pluralism and dialogue, and to support free expression of differing views in Israel. In contrast, NGO Monitor’s research demonstrates the damage to democracy resulting from these NIF-supported NGO activities, and the lack of effective guidelines in NIF’s funding processes. From correspondence, it is clear that many NIF donors, both individuals and via Jewish federations, are unaware of these political campaigns.
The political impact of NIF-supported NGOs, based on an annual budget of $32 million, is increased via additional funds from European governments and church groups that allocate funds to the same recipient organizations. Through the media, via legal processes, and elsewhere, NIF grantees are therefore in a position to manipulate the marketplace of ideas to a degree that is entirely disproportionate to the general level of support for their agendas.
This preliminary report presents an overview of how NIF-funded NGOs contributed to the Goldstone Report and promoted it after publication. Also included are brief summaries of the activities of 20 NGOs funded by NIF.
2. NIF-funded NGOs and the Goldstone indictment
Written submission
A group of Israeli NGOs -ACRI, Adalah, Bimkom, Gisha, HaMoked, PHR-I, PCATI, and Yesh Din - submitted a one-sided written statement to the Goldstone Commission (June 30, 2009) that does not address alleged Hamas war crimes, “but rather offers our own distinct perspective - human rights violations for which Israel must be held accountable.”[1 ] This NGO document makes entirely speculative assertions about the motivation for the IDF operation against Hamas, claiming that “[t]o the extent that this was planned as a punitive operation which main purpose was not the achievement of actual military objectives, but the inflicting of deliberate damage as a deterrent and punitive measure” - despite their lacking requisite information to make such an assertion.[2 ]
The submission accuses the IDF of having “deliberately and knowingly shelled civilian institutions,” supporting the coalition’s incorrect legal claim that “Israel deviated from the principle that allows harm only to military objectives, and carried out strikes against civilian sites in an effort to achieve political ends.”[3 ] References and evidence are missing for many accusations, such as the allegation that “[m]any prisoners... were held in pits in the ground... apparently dug by the army”[4 ]; details are sourced to “information in our possession.”[5 ]
NGO support for Goldstone
Since April 2009, when Judge Richard Goldstone was appointed to lead the UN Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission into the Gaza war, NIF-funded NGOs were among those that led the campaign demanding that the Israeli government cooperate with the investigation, supporting misleading claims that the mandate was “balanced” and the panel was fair.
In turn, Goldstone bolstered the credibility of these groups by relying heavily on their publications, uncritically repeating claims, calling NGO activists to “testify,” praising their “high professional standard” while working in “extremely difficult circumstances,” and defending them against alleged “repression” from the Israeli government.
Since the initial publication of the Goldstone report on September 15, 2009, and throughout the proceedings at the UN, these NIF-supported NGOs have continued supporting Goldstone and lobbying the governments of the United States, the European Union, and others to legitimize the report’s extreme biases and endorse its recommendations.
B’Tselem, which receives a substantial percentage of its budget from NIF, the EU, and European governments, has been campaigning against the IDF and demanding an “independent and credible investigation ” of the Gaza war since January 2009, urged Israel to cooperate with Goldstone, and “provided assistance to the investigative staff of the Goldstone mission from the beginning to the end of its research.”
Disingenuously, and erasing her own role in the process, B’Tselem Executive Director Jessica Montell claimed that “Israel has only itself to blame ” for the report’s conclusions and recommendations. She also stated that Israel was “shoot[ing] the messenger and bury[ing] its head in the sand.”
When the report was released, B’Tselem mildly criticized Goldstone for “framing of Israel’s military operation as part of ‘an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience’” and “the very careful phrasing regarding Hamas abuses.” However, this NIF-funded political NGO continues to “advocate[] for... its principal recommendation: that Israel investigate suspicions that its forces breached international humanitarian law.”
Other NIF grantees - Adalah, ACRI, B’Tselem, Gisha, HaMoked, PHR-I, PCATI, and Yesh Din - issued a joint statement calling on Israel to “take the report seriously” and “cooperate with an international monitoring mechanism that would guarantee both the independence of that investigation and the implementation of its conclusions.”
3. Summary of activities by 20 major NIF grantees active in the Arab-Israeli conflict
•Adala h (NIF grants authorized in 2006-2008: $1,045,292) advances “war crimes” charges against Israel at the UN Human Rights Council, in reports cited in the media, in Israeli courts, and in campaigns conducted with other political NGOs. Adalah officials promote the false claim that “the Israeli legal and judicial systems have consistently failed in providing any legal remedies to the Palestinian people.” Adalah, itself, has prevailed several times in cases filed in Israeli courts.
In 2007, Adalah proposed a constitution for Israel that calls for replacing the Jewish framework of the state with a “democratic, bilingual and multicultural” framework. This “Democratic Constitution ” - based on the concept of “a one-state solution” - would permit Jewish immigration for “humanitarian reasons” only.
Adalah campaigns against national community service for Arabs in Israel, even within the Arab sector, although such service is widely supported by Israeli Arabs. In a 2005 publication, for instance, Adalah claimed “national/military service in Israel... constitutes the Jewish Zionist identity” and forces Arabs to “to submit to a rationale that further grounds discrimination and oppression.”
Adalah officials, in conjunction with radical Palestinian NGO Al-Haq, wrote and edited large portions of a May 2009 publication, initiated by anti-Israel ideologue John Dugard, entitled “Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel´s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law.” The document refers to Israeli occupation as a “colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid.”
Goldstone excerpt: “Not allowing prisoners to use the telephone “violates detainees’ right to dignity and their right to family life, and ‘transforms their imprisonment to a humiliating and degrading experience that contradicts international norms and conventions.” (para. 1458)
• Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $285,509) is a highly politicized umbrella organization that systematically condemns Israeli policies. CWP projects include Machsom Watch (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $165,198) and others that use “apartheid” and “Naqba” rhetoric to delegitimize Israel.
CWP is responsible for the “Who Profits? ” divestment project tracking Israeli and international corporations that allegedly “are directly involved in the occupation.” Who Profits? influenced the anti-Israel divestment campaign in Norway and a similar project in the UK.
In 2009, CWP published an article asking: “How is it that our consolation is that we hurt, we demolished, we killed?.... The truth is that we really do like wars, that's our language, that's our culture... we will find all the explanations in the world to justify any war. Even this one, the spare one, in Gaza.” During the war, CWP joined the “Remove the Siege-Stop the War ” coalition, and organized protests against Israeli policy. It also participated in public commemorations of the “59th anniversary of the Naqba” on Israel’s Independence Day in 2007.
Goldstone excerpt (Machsom Watch): “The restriction on the ability to move freely, without obstacle or delay, or without another person’s authorization, is often perceived as a humiliating experience.” (para. 1509)
• Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $503,537) supports often violent protests at the security barrier near Bil’in as an “act of solidarity with the people who fight against the occupation and the building of the wall.” PHR-I campaigned in international forums against Israel’s actions during the Gaza War, appearing before the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People andlobbying the European Union to support condemnations of Israel. This NGO was a major source of accusations contained in the Goldstone report.
Goldstone excerpt: “The Mission also investigated and confirmed allegations about the use of weapons whose potential long-term impact on individual victims’ health raises concern. They include allegations of the use of weapons containing chemical pollutants such as tungsten and white phosphorus.” (para. 1258)[6 ]
• Breaking the Silence (BtS) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $200,855) says it “voices the experiences ” of Israeli soldiers “in order to force Israeli society to address the reality which it created.” Although claiming to target “Israeli society,” this NGO’s lobbying and media advocacy focus on international audiences. Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz: “Breaking the Silence... has a clear political agenda, and can no longer be classed as a ‘human rights organization.’”
In addition to collecting anonymous testimony from soldiers some of it based on hearsay and widely cited as evidence of “war crimes” in Gaza by publications including the Goldstone report BtS conducts tours to Hebron and the South Hebron Hills to support its claim that in Hebron there is “a reality of Apartheid and a kind of ‘ethnic cleansing.’”
Goldstone excerpt: “Breaking the Silence issued a statement in which it accused the Foreign Ministry of a ‘witch-hunt’, saying that it testified to the erosion of the ‘democratic culture’ in Israel.” (para. 1731)
•B’Tselem (grants authorized in 2006-1008: $785,285) “acts primarily to change Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories,” a political objective bolstered by B’Tselem’s office in Washington, DC, which brings its agenda directly to U.S. officials. While widely considered Israel’s premier human-rights organization, B’Tselem has faced serious criticism for its misrepresentations of international law, inaccurate research, skewed statistics (includingcasualty lists ), and selective coverage of violations against Israelis. These problematic methodologies reinforce the Palestinian narrative of victimization and portray Israel as the sole impediment to peace.
Goldstone excerpt: “In the face of the recently increase in violence by the Israeli security forces in the West Bank, B’Tselem stated that condemnations by Ministers and other officials “remain solely declarative. Security forces, meanwhile, misusing their power, continue to abuse and beat Palestinians, among them, minors.... If a message is sent to security forces, it is that even if the establishment does not accept acts of violence, it will not take measures against those who commit them. The effect of such a message is that the lives and dignity of Palestinians are meaningless and that security forces can continue, pursuant to the function they serve, to abuse, humiliate, and beat Palestinians with whom they come into contact.” (para. 1405)
• Bimkom (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $923,221)aims “to achieve the right to equality and social justice in matters of planning, development, and the allocation of land resources” and to “[assist] communities and minorities affected by social and economic disadvantage.” In reality, Bimkom promotes the Palestinian narrative. Activities include acampaign against the security barrier ; petitions against “collective punishment ” in Gaza; and input to press releases, reports, and a website detailing allegations of Israeli “violations” during the fighting in Gaza - most of which involved issues outside Bimkom’s remit and stated mandate.
Goldstone excerpt: “In a recent report reviewed by the Mission, Bimkom concluded that the Israeli Civil Administration applied ‘a deliberate and consistent policy in Area C with the goal of restricting Palestinian construction and development and limiting its spatial dispersion.’” (para. 1539)
• Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $48,888) claims to campaign against torture and for prisoner rights. PCATI’s reports condemn alleged Israeli abuses, and its officials appear before international frameworks to promote anti-Israel agendas. In 2009, a PCATI official testified in Geneva before the UN’s Goldstone inquiry on the Gaza war, referring to Israel’s “unacceptable collective punishment” and to Palestinian “martyrs.” In a 2009 report submitted to the UN Committee Against Torture, PCATI accused Israel of attacks on “civilians and civilian objects” during the Gaza fighting. The group appears to have participated in only one statement in support of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas in June 2006 and consistently denied his rights under the Geneva Conventions.
Goldstone excerpt: “A PCATI lawyer representing detainees, Mr. Bader, who spoke at the Mission’s public hearings in Geneva, interviewed a number of the detainees in Israeli prisons and relayed their testimonies. These include stories from prisoners who said they were used as human shields or held in sandpits.” (para. 1110)
•Gisha (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $35,625) promotes the false claim that Gaza remains “occupied” under international law, and that Israel has a legal obligation to grant unfettered “freedom of movement” to Gaza residents. Gisha’s claims were quoted in the Goldstone report in order to accuse Israel of enacting policies “in the pursuance by Israel of political goals at the expense of the civilian population, in blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
Gisha’s highly publicized 2008 campaign condemning Israel for barring Palestinian students’ travel from Gaza to Israel and to the United States under the Fulbright program erased Israel’s legitimated security concerns. Indeed, most of these “students” were refused entry by the American government on security grounds. In addition, in frequent condemnations of Israeli policy on Gaza, Gisha has largely ignored the tons of humanitarian aid provided by Israel despite massive rocket barrages from Gaza.
Goldstone excerpt: “Gisha call[s] this regulation an additional measure in a deliberate Israeli policy to deepen the separation between the West Bank and Gaza ‘in the pursuance by Israel of political goals at the expense of the civilian population, in blatant violation of international humanitarian law.’” (para. 1527)
•HaMoked (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $499,765) accuses Israel of “war crimes,” with only a token reference to Hamas’ “sporadic” rocket fire against Israeli civilians. HaMokedcalled the Gaza war a “punitive operation,” and promoted the unverified claim that “[m]any prisoners... were held in pits in the ground... apparently dug by the army.” During the Gaza war, HaMoked distorted international law to criminalize Israeli actions, falsely claiming that “phosphorous and cluster bombs” are “illegal weapons prohibited by International Humanitarian Law.”
•Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $2,671,443) has a wide agenda in Israel, but frequently employs rhetoric that contributes to demonization and delegitimization. For example, its 2008 annual report labeled Israel’s policies in the West Bank “Apartheid,” and ACRI representatives have referred to “institutional racism” in Palestinian forums. Many legal claims in its reports are distortions or selective interpretations of international humanitarian law.
Goldstone excerpt: “In a report reviewed by the Mission, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel stated that, in Jerusalem “discrimination in planning and building, expropriation of lands, and minimal investment in physical infrastructure and government and municipal services - these are concrete expressions of an Israeli policy designed to secure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem and push Palestinian residents outside the city's borders.” (para. 1536)
• Ir Amim (grants authorized in 2006-2008: $958,237) focuses on “legal advocacy aimed at halting or mitigating unilateral actions that harm the fabric of life in Jerusalem, and create obstacles to reaching an agreed-upon future for the city and the region.” In reality, Ir Amimadvocates and campaigns exclusively for the Palestinian narrative on Jerusalem, adopting the offensive PLO rhetoric of “Judaization ”, and directing these efforts at influencing foreign journalists, diplomats, and opinion-makers.
View the report 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
Thursday, February 11, 2010
NGO Monitor Calls on New Israel Fund to Draw "Red Lines"
JERUSALEM - The research and watchdog group NGO Monitor (ngo-monitor.org) today called on the New Israel Fund (NIF) to implement clear "red lines" regarding the activities and rhetoric of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that it funds. NIF has been widely criticized for supporting advocacy groups that contribute centrally to demonization through allegations of "war crimes" and intense lobbying on behalf of the Goldstone Report.
"Instead of using its relationship with NGOs to advance constructive agendas, NIF has been supporting and defending campaigns that demonize and delegitimize Israel," charged Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "In many cases, it appears that NIF donors are unaware of the activities of these groups and their damaging impact. It is essential that powerful organizations like NIF establish clear guidelines and implement them in a unequivocal and transparent manner."
NGO Monitor proposes that NIF adopt "red lines" that prevent funding for organizations that support activities designed to promote the NGO "Durban strategy" to isolate Israel:
1. BDS: Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns.
2. Demonization and delegitimization: Expressions including "apartheid," Nazi rhetoric, "war crimes," and deliberate misrepresentations of international law, as well as the use of UN frameworks for these goals.
3. Lawfare: Legal threats or activities in courts outside Israel directed against Israeli officials, "Zionist" or "parastatal" groups, or companies that do business in Israel.
4. Anti-Zionism: Opposition to the definition of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state," including demands for a "one-state solution," the revocation of the Law of Return, and the elimination of national Jewish symbols.
"For an organization that claims that 'our supporters love Israel,' these red lines should be self-evident," said Steinberg.
He added that NGO Monitor has raised these topics in reports and correspondence with NIF officials on several occasions, but NIF has been unwilling to engage in substantive debate. "We remain committed to serious dialogue with the NIF, to address and debate these important issues and develop effective guidelines for funding," Steinberg said.
NGO Monitor, 1 Ben Maimon Blvd, Jerusalem 92262, Israel
Tel: +972-2-566-1020 +972-2-566-1020 Fax: +972-77-511-7030
For further info contact comms@ngo-monitor.org
www.ngo-monitor.org
"Instead of using its relationship with NGOs to advance constructive agendas, NIF has been supporting and defending campaigns that demonize and delegitimize Israel," charged Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "In many cases, it appears that NIF donors are unaware of the activities of these groups and their damaging impact. It is essential that powerful organizations like NIF establish clear guidelines and implement them in a unequivocal and transparent manner."
NGO Monitor proposes that NIF adopt "red lines" that prevent funding for organizations that support activities designed to promote the NGO "Durban strategy" to isolate Israel:
1. BDS: Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns.
2. Demonization and delegitimization: Expressions including "apartheid," Nazi rhetoric, "war crimes," and deliberate misrepresentations of international law, as well as the use of UN frameworks for these goals.
3. Lawfare: Legal threats or activities in courts outside Israel directed against Israeli officials, "Zionist" or "parastatal" groups, or companies that do business in Israel.
4. Anti-Zionism: Opposition to the definition of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state," including demands for a "one-state solution," the revocation of the Law of Return, and the elimination of national Jewish symbols.
"For an organization that claims that 'our supporters love Israel,' these red lines should be self-evident," said Steinberg.
He added that NGO Monitor has raised these topics in reports and correspondence with NIF officials on several occasions, but NIF has been unwilling to engage in substantive debate. "We remain committed to serious dialogue with the NIF, to address and debate these important issues and develop effective guidelines for funding," Steinberg said.
NGO Monitor, 1 Ben Maimon Blvd, Jerusalem 92262, Israel
Tel: +972-2-566-1020 +972-2-566-1020 Fax: +972-77-511-7030
For further info contact comms@ngo-monitor.org
www.ngo-monitor.org
Sunday, February 7, 2010
On Free Speech and Informed Public Debate: An Open Letter to NIF and Affiliated NGOs
By Professor Gerald Steinberg and the NGO Monitor staff
To ACRI, Bimkom, B’Tselem, Gisha, PCATI, Yesh Din, HaMoked, PHR-I, Rabbis for Human Rights, and New Israel Fund (NIF):
The recent attacks directed against NGO Monitor’s detailed research represent a dangerous attempt to prevent free speech and informed public debate on the political role of some NGOs. In particular, in your February 1, 2010 letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu , you tendentiously referred to NGO Monitor as an “extreme group” that “unleashed an unrestrained and inflammatory [attack],” and implied that we are the “rotten fruits” of Israeli democracy; B’Tselem’s US representative, Mitchell Plitnick, labeled us “extremists” and “right wing”; and, a few months ago, an NIF employee posted an indecent graphic on his blog (which was later removed) to illustrate his opinion of NGO Monitor’s publications.
These characterizations are inconsistent with claims to uphold the mantle of human rights and democracy in Israel. Contrary to the implications of your letter, NGO Monitor has never contested the right of civil society organizations to exist or to criticize. And if your rhetoric about upholding free speech in Israel were matched by your policies, you would uphold our right as an independent research organization, and the rights of NGOs that do not share your political views, to do the same.
The critical debate surrounding foreign government funding for NGOs that undertake political advocacy in Israel is legitimate, and all sides have the right to be heard.
The concerns about your political activities and their relationship to campaigns delegitimizing and demonizing Israel are valid. Criticism is not repression.
These latest attacks are consistent with your continuing refusal to engage NGO Monitor and other significant critics in meaningful dialogue. Instead, you have repeatedly avoided debate. Most recently, you were provided the opportunity for an open platform at a Knesset conference on European government funding for political NGOs, but chose instead to boycott and question the legitimacy of this forum.
NGO Monitor remains committed to engaging with you in public debate on the role of political NGOs in Israeli society and in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is time to move beyond counter-productive name-calling and attempts to silence critics.
Prof. Gerald Steinberg and the NGO Monitor staff
View the original article at NGO Monitor
To ACRI, Bimkom, B’Tselem, Gisha, PCATI, Yesh Din, HaMoked, PHR-I, Rabbis for Human Rights, and New Israel Fund (NIF):
The recent attacks directed against NGO Monitor’s detailed research represent a dangerous attempt to prevent free speech and informed public debate on the political role of some NGOs. In particular, in your February 1, 2010 letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu , you tendentiously referred to NGO Monitor as an “extreme group” that “unleashed an unrestrained and inflammatory [attack],” and implied that we are the “rotten fruits” of Israeli democracy; B’Tselem’s US representative, Mitchell Plitnick, labeled us “extremists” and “right wing”; and, a few months ago, an NIF employee posted an indecent graphic on his blog (which was later removed) to illustrate his opinion of NGO Monitor’s publications.
These characterizations are inconsistent with claims to uphold the mantle of human rights and democracy in Israel. Contrary to the implications of your letter, NGO Monitor has never contested the right of civil society organizations to exist or to criticize. And if your rhetoric about upholding free speech in Israel were matched by your policies, you would uphold our right as an independent research organization, and the rights of NGOs that do not share your political views, to do the same.
The critical debate surrounding foreign government funding for NGOs that undertake political advocacy in Israel is legitimate, and all sides have the right to be heard.
The concerns about your political activities and their relationship to campaigns delegitimizing and demonizing Israel are valid. Criticism is not repression.
These latest attacks are consistent with your continuing refusal to engage NGO Monitor and other significant critics in meaningful dialogue. Instead, you have repeatedly avoided debate. Most recently, you were provided the opportunity for an open platform at a Knesset conference on European government funding for political NGOs, but chose instead to boycott and question the legitimacy of this forum.
NGO Monitor remains committed to engaging with you in public debate on the role of political NGOs in Israeli society and in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is time to move beyond counter-productive name-calling and attempts to silence critics.
Prof. Gerald Steinberg and the NGO Monitor staff
View the original article at NGO Monitor
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Special Report: Inside Adalah - The Legal Center for Minority Arab Rights in Israel (The Center for Near East Policy Research)
Inside Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Arab Rights in Israel
by Arlene Kushner
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Adalah, an Israeli-registered non-profit, non-governmental organization, claims to
work on behalf of the human rights of Israeli Arabs. Many fair-minded persons – eager
to see equitable treatment for Israeli Arabs within Israeli society and lacking
information on how Adalah and the New Israel Fund operate – support the work of this
organization..
Buried within its stance as a non-partisan human rights organization, is the agenda of Adalah: Highly partisan and deeply politicized, Adalah seeks to delegitimize Israel and ultimately to destroy it as a Jewish state.
Utilizing rhetoric that echoes the positions of radical Palestinian groups, it:
· exhibits a total failure of objectivity
· willfully misrepresents facts
· levels unfounded and highly pejorative charges against Israel
· defends groups and individuals that are sworn enemies of Israel or have
connections to these enemies
Advancing a position founded on a spurious claim of the collective (as versus
individual) human rights of Israeli Arabs, Adalah promotes the position that the Jewish nature of Israel is inherently discriminatory. Thus, it has proposed a constitution for Israel that would strip away Jewish components and permit the “return” of Palestinian refugees.
In the course of its work, Adalah issues press releases, petitions the courts of Israel and makes presentations to international bodies. Most egregious has been its active participation in the Durban I Conference of 2001, which deteriorated into a forum for vituperrious Israel-bashing; Adalah will be participating in the run-up to this conference, scheduled for April 2009.
In various venues – including Durban – Adalah has charged or participating in
charging Israel with:
· grave breeches of international humanitarian law
· war crimes
· willful killing
· racism
· apartheid
· ethnic cleansing
See the full report: Inside Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Arab Rights in Israel
by Arlene Kushner
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Adalah, an Israeli-registered non-profit, non-governmental organization, claims to
work on behalf of the human rights of Israeli Arabs. Many fair-minded persons – eager
to see equitable treatment for Israeli Arabs within Israeli society and lacking
information on how Adalah and the New Israel Fund operate – support the work of this
organization..
Buried within its stance as a non-partisan human rights organization, is the agenda of Adalah: Highly partisan and deeply politicized, Adalah seeks to delegitimize Israel and ultimately to destroy it as a Jewish state.
Utilizing rhetoric that echoes the positions of radical Palestinian groups, it:
· exhibits a total failure of objectivity
· willfully misrepresents facts
· levels unfounded and highly pejorative charges against Israel
· defends groups and individuals that are sworn enemies of Israel or have
connections to these enemies
Advancing a position founded on a spurious claim of the collective (as versus
individual) human rights of Israeli Arabs, Adalah promotes the position that the Jewish nature of Israel is inherently discriminatory. Thus, it has proposed a constitution for Israel that would strip away Jewish components and permit the “return” of Palestinian refugees.
In the course of its work, Adalah issues press releases, petitions the courts of Israel and makes presentations to international bodies. Most egregious has been its active participation in the Durban I Conference of 2001, which deteriorated into a forum for vituperrious Israel-bashing; Adalah will be participating in the run-up to this conference, scheduled for April 2009.
In various venues – including Durban – Adalah has charged or participating in
charging Israel with:
· grave breeches of international humanitarian law
· war crimes
· willful killing
· racism
· apartheid
· ethnic cleansing
See the full report: Inside Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Arab Rights in Israel
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