Love of the Land: New Israel Fund: Supporting Israel’s Destruction, One NGO at a Time?

New Israel Fund: Supporting Israel’s Destruction, One NGO at a Time?

The New Israel Fund, now under investigation by the Israeli government, has been supporting a phalanx of groups dedicated to destroying Israel.


Abraham H. Miller
Pajamasmedia.com
15 April '10

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.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: New Israel Fund: Supporting Israel’s Destruction, One NGO at a Time?

Love of the Land: NGO “Apartheid State” Campaign: Deliberately Immoral or Intellectually Lazy?

NGO “Apartheid State” Campaign: Deliberately Immoral or Intellectually Lazy?

NGO Monitor
22 March '10

-Labeling Israel an apartheid state is part of a larger strategy of political warfare that includes NGO boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns and “lawfare” cases against Israelis. It is the latest manifestation of the 1975 UN “Zionism is racism” resolution and the 2001 Durban Conference NGO Forum declaration.

-The only internationally recognized case of apartheid was in South Africa. Customary law is based therefore on those practices that were unique in apartheid South Africa. Since Israel does not share these practices, it cannot be defined as an apartheid state under international law.

-Many NGO claims and legal arguments equating Israel with apartheid South Africa originate with the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department and were developed for propaganda purposes.

-Many NGOs falsely portray the Arab-Israeli conflict as a dispute motivated by alleged Jewish race-hatred of Arabs, rather than one based on competing national and territorial claims.

-A significant portion of the organizations involved in apartheid based demonization receive substantial funds from the European Union, European governments, New Israel Fund (NIF), Ford Foundation, and George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

-NIF’s funding of such organizations is entirely inconsistent with a March 2010 statement by CEO Daniel Sokatch, that “apartheid” is “a historically inaccurate and inflammatory term that serves only to demonize Israel and alienate a majority of Jews around the world.”

(Read full report)

Love of the Land: NGO “Apartheid State” Campaign: Deliberately Immoral or Intellectually Lazy?

Love of the Land: All the News Unfit to Print

All the News Unfit to Print

Andrea Levin
CAMERA Media Analysis
18 March '10

What the New York Times chooses to cover in the Arab-Israeli conflict – and what it excludes – is a story in itself. The paper's silence, as of this writing, about an event that has rocked the Israeli media and public and triggered calls for government action once more raises serious questions about the paper's news judgment. After all, the Times reports on no other foreign nation as minutely as it does Israel, whether about negotiations, housing permits in Jerusalem, Israeli gravel-use in the West Bank or a Tel Aviv polygamist.

The story being ignored is the Im Tirtzu campaign to expose the New Israel Fund's connection to the defamatory Goldstone Report via its funding of groups that spurred the creation of and then contributed harsh commentary about Israel to the UN document. Originally founded as a student organization to counter anti-Zionist activity on campus, Im Tirtzu publicized revelations about the NIF-Goldstone ties in provocative ads across the country. The campaign began in January and has already prompted moves in the Knesset to intensify oversight of foreign political entities financing groups in Israel.

According to polls, the Israeli public by a significant margin opposes politically-based foreign funding of activity in Israel.

So why the silent treatment by the Times?

For starters, many of the very same NIF-supported NGO's under fire for allegedly helping fuel the Goldstone calumnies against Israel are also preferred news sources of the Times, quoted regularly as reliable critics of Israeli society. B'Tselem and Yesh Din, for instance, are favorites, together cited at least 25 times in the last two years, typically charging the Israel Defense Forces or other official bodies with misconduct, and sometimes prompting entire stories focused on the NGO charges.

(Read full critique)

Love of the Land: All the News Unfit to Print

Love of the Land: Lawfare Attack vs. NGO Monitor Thrown Out of Court

Lawfare Attack vs. NGO Monitor Thrown Out of Court

NGO Monitor
07 March '10

(Thumbs up! Another one for the good guys.)

On March 1, 2010, the Nazareth District Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by NIF- and European- funded NGO Mossawa against NGO Monitor for alleged defamation.

NGO “Lawfare” is a central part of the Durban strategy of demonization, and consists of filing frivolous lawsuits around the world to harass Israeli officials and those doing business with Israel. Lawfare, as stated on the BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) movement website, also includes efforts to “remove the charity status and tax exemptions from, the Zionist organizations worldwide,...and dealing with them legally as racist, colonial institutions,” as well as filing libel allegations to silence those who seek to expose this strategy. As NGO Monitor has shown, most of the lawfare cases are initiated by Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, many of which receive funding from European governments, the European Union, and in some cases the New Israel Fund and the Ford Foundation.

NGO Monitor has been the target of a number of these “lawfare” attacks, designed to prevent public debate by silencing our systematic research on the role and funding for non-governmental organizations leading the political warfare against Israel.

In 2008, Mossawa filed a 13-page complaint in a Nazareth court claiming it was “libeled” by NGO Monitor’s research detailing Mossawa’s activities and funding sources. The March 1, 2010 ruling by Judge Irit Hod threw out Mossawa’s case, rebuked the organization for failing to comply with court orders, and fined it NIS 2,500.

Love of the Land: Lawfare Attack vs. NGO Monitor Thrown Out of Court

Love of the Land: Follow the Money

Follow the Money

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
04 March '10

This phrase, made famous by Deep Throat, should become the guiding principle for people concerned with the growing effectiveness of the NGO movement’s effort to convince the Western world that Israel is a uniquely guilty human-rights and international-law violator.

An important introductory guide to the largely unscrutinized world of NGO funding has been provided by Jonathan Rosenblum. I bet you didn’t know how large the annual budget of the New Israel Fund is: last year, it was $32 million. That’s an immense amount of money, and a great deal of it is doled out to NGOs with innocuous-sounding names, like The Coalition of Women for Peace, but that, in fact, support the boycott, divest, and sanction movement, the “right of return,” the branding of Israel as an “apartheid state,” and other causes antithetical to peace.

It might turn out that the Goldstone Report, despite all the damage it has done, will end up serving a worthy purpose: it is awakening the pro-Israel community to the reality that many organizations that traffic in the language of human rights and international law have no interest in either — their real goal is the crippling of one particular state, and they have merely discovered an effective vocabulary to employ that gives their ugly cause a patina of nobility. To understand how the NGO movement works, follow the money.

Love of the Land: Follow the Money

Love of the Land: NIF and the Addiction to Power

NIF and the Addiction to Power

Gerald Steinberg
NGO Monitor
24 February '10

Officials of the New Israel Fund (NIF) and of affiliated NGOs have been attacking critics following revelations regarding their contributions to the assault on Israel, particularly in the Goldstone Report. Rather than addressing the severe problems that have been exposed, NIF and its supporters have targeted NGO Monitor with hysterical attacks and irrational mudslinging.

Defenders of NIF, such as Gershon Baskin (“A dark day for democracy,” Feb. 8, 2010) and David Newman (“The politics of delegitimization,” Feb. 9, 2010), as well as NGO officials (Mitchell Plitnick of B’Tselem, Hagai El-ad of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Yossi Alpher of Peace Now, and others), have painted an image that puts NGO Monitor’s research at the center of a vast right-wing conspiracy and “witch hunt” intent on sabotaging democracy and blocking free speech through “McCarthyite” tactics.

While it is tempting throw some mud back, I will refrain. It is more constructive to provide an alternative to the hysteria used by both political fringes.
I have known Baskin, Newman, Alpher, and NIF President Naomi Chazan for many years, and while I believe their self-interests and narrow ideologies blind them to reality, they are committed Zionists who believe in the importance of Jewish national self-determination.

Why, then, are these Zionists contributing to the war against Israel, using the strategies adopted in the infamous NGO Forum of the 2001 Durban Conference and embodied in the Goldstone process? How can we explain their roles in “apartheid” propaganda and exploitation of the language of international law and human rights to demonize Israel?

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: NIF and the Addiction to Power

Love of the Land: The New Israel Fund and Goldstone

The New Israel Fund and Goldstone

Gerald Steinberg
Canadian JewishNews
18 February '10

Ma’ariv, one of Israel’s mass-circulation dailies, recently featured a scathing condemnation of the New Israel Fund (NIF) for leading the political war to demonize Israel.The journalist who wrote the piece, Ben Caspit, is a political centrist whose tolerance snapped when he realized that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the NIF were responsible for most of the “war crimes” allegations in the UN’s Goldstone report on the Gaza war.

Caspit’s article amplified the Israeli debate on the role of the NIF – a Diaspora-based superpower with an annual budget of around $25 million. The accusations were publicized by Im Tirtzu, a student group promoting Zionist renewal, which also placed ads on websites and in newspapers ridiculing the organization and its leader, Naomi Chazan.

Like other politicians whose power is threatened, Chazan and the NIF leadership responded furiously, denying the evidence and threatening legal action. However, having themselves used personal and crude graphics against opponents, the threats from Chazan and the NIF lacked credibility. While claiming to defend free speech, the NIF’s fierce attacks on critics were themselves attempts to silence a much-needed public debate.

Israeli anger toward the NIF also reflects the discovery of a hidden agenda, in contrast to Im Tirtzu and other openly more right-wing organizations. In its advertising and fundraising, the NIF claims to provide broad support for different groups in Israel, but many of its actions promote a very narrow and radical agenda.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The New Israel Fund and Goldstone

Love of the Land: More free speech follies

More free speech follies

Jonathan Rosenblum
Think Again/JPost
19 February '10

Many on the Left employ a double standard concerning free speech. They want their own advocates immunized from criticism yet have an elaborate set of rules to disallow the speech of others as incitement, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, or McCarthyism.

Fast and furious was the reaction to the recent accusation by Im Tirtzu, a Zionist student group, that 92 percent of the Goldstone Report’s citations came from 16 NGOs funded by the New Israel Fund. David Newman described Im Tirzu’s efforts, in these pages, as “the latest campaign to trample freedom of speech and political activity within our dying democracy,” pure McCarthyism (“The politics of delegitimization,” February 10).

That statement was typical Left-academic fare, both in its casual dismissal of Israel’s “dying” democracy and in its misunderstanding of free speech.

In his classical defense of free speech, John Stuart Mill imagined a free marketplace of ideas, in which truth will usually prevail. But Newman could not be bothered to respond to a single item in Im Tirzu’s meticulously documented report on NIF funding. Instead of refutation, he offered only name-calling.

Free speech presupposes criticism, without which there can be no marketplace of competing ideas. It does not mean that no one who has won in the battle of the marketplace of ideas will ever act upon their perception. Free speech is precious precisely because ideas have consequences. The NIF would prefer its donors to think that it is involved in social welfare projects or pushing religious pluralism. It tells donors that it does not fund groups that call for disinvestment or boycotts of Israel, or who negate the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, or which advocate the Palestinian right of return, or which engage in propaganda. Each of these claims is false. Im Tirzu shone a light on the activities of the NIF that the organization would rather hide. But increasing public knowledge is precisely what the marketplace of ideas is supposed to do.

Many on the Left employ a double standard concerning free speech. They want their own advocates or professors immunized from criticism – thus Prof. Newman’s outrage at groups, such as Campus Watch, which publicize what professors say in and outside the classroom. On the other hand, they develop an elaborate set of rules to disallow the speech of others as incitement, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, or McCarthyism.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: More free speech follies

Love of the Land: ‘Goldstone Report was our smoking gun’

‘Goldstone Report was our smoking gun’

How did Im Tirtzu go from organizing campus demonstrations to compiling a major report that has reverberated into a major scandal?


Abe Selig
JPost
18 February '10

How did Im Tirtzu-The Second Zionist Revolution, which was created less than four years ago as a small student organization to voice support for IDF reservists, go from organizing campus demonstrations during the Second Lebanon War to compiling a major report that has reverberated into a major scandal?

One of the reasons, The Jerusalem Post learned this week, was that the document the group released last month, now known as the “Im Tirtzu Report,” which listed the New Israel Fund as a main financier of more than a dozen Israeli NGOs – including: The Association for Civil Rights in Israel; Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; Bimkom-Planners for Planning Rights; Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement; HaMoked-Center for the Defense of the Individual; Physicians for Human Rights-Israel; the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; and Yesh Din-Volunteers for Human Rights – that provided testimony used in the UN’s Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead, was the result of efforts modeled after military intelligence operations that trace and pinpoint money trails leading to terrorist organizations.

Im Tirtzu head Ronen Shoval, told the Post this week that the detailed report, which has continued to make waves both in civil society and government circles, was “modeled after the way intelligence agencies look into the financing of terror groups.”

“We invested great efforts to understand the funding strategy and ideology behind the NIF, and what we found out is just the tip of the iceberg,” Shoval said, although he declined to elaborate.

(Read full article)

Related: (Video) Im Tirtzu: Bringing about the 2nd Zionist revolution

Love of the Land: ‘Goldstone Report was our smoking gun’

Love of the Land: NIF energizes donors by damaging Israel

NIF energizes donors by damaging Israel

Fresnozionism.org
13 February '10

Jacob Berkman writes a blog about Jewish philanthropy called “The Fundermentalist“. Today he tells us that for the New Israel Fund, apparently no publicity is bad publicity:

The attack on NIF may actually play right into the organization’s hands. At least that’s what [NIF CEO Daniel] Sokatch seems to think.

He told us that the recent attention proved to be a boon for NIF.

“This has not only mobilized our base, but there are people hearing about us for the fist time and saying, ‘This is what I want to support,’ ” Sokatch said. “That is the irony of this. This has put us in the limelight.”

The NIF says its number of Facebook fans has tripled, and its number of Twitter followers has jumped 50 percent over the past two weeks. And more than 50 Tweeters have put a horn on their profile pictures in a show of solidarity with [NIF President Naomi] Chazan.

…and all this because someone pointed out that NIF-funded organizations provided much of the documentation cited in the Goldstone report!

Sokatch went on to take credit for what some see as the destructive phenomenon of left-wing Israeli organizations, empowered by foreign money, which use the rhetoric of social justice and human rights to contribute t0 the demonization of Israel:

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: NIF energizes donors by damaging Israel

Love of the Land: NGO Monitor Calls on New Israel Fund to Draw “Red Lines”

NGO Monitor Calls on New Israel Fund to Draw “Red Lines”

NGO Monitor
11 February '10

JERUSALEM – The research and watchdog group NGO Monitor 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:

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: NGO Monitor Calls on New Israel Fund to Draw “Red Lines”

Love of the Land: The New Israel Fund for Deepening the Jewish-Arab Rift

The New Israel Fund for Deepening the Jewish-Arab Rift

Israel Harel
Haaretz
11 February '10

The Im Tirtzu organization accuses the New Israel Fund of financing Israeli organizations which Judge Richard Goldstone used for information to accuse the Israel Defense Forces of "war crimes."

The fund's response, as is the wont of radical leftist organizations under fire, was to smear its critics as "fascists".Granted, the NIF's president, Naomi Chazan, signed a petition that defined the IDF's operations in Gaza as "terror against civilians" and demanded that Israel abide by "all UN resolutions relating to the conflict" (including 194, which Palestinians interpret as granting them a "right of return"). Nevertheless, the personal campaign against her is a mistake.

The NIF's many supporters in the media and among political organizations (which benefit from the fund, both directly and indirectly) have used this personal campaign to divert the debate from the fund's subversive goal (a "new Israel," not Jewish or Zionist), which it has furthered by donating more than $200 million thus far to hundreds of anti-Zionist organizations (I have a list, if anyone is interested).

Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel - has used its NIF funding to submit dozens of petitions to the High Court of Justice that seek to reduce and even abolish Israel's identity as a Jewish state. "Israel must recognize the [Palestinian] refugees' right of return, on the basis of UN Resolution 194," declares the introduction to a proposed constitution that Adalah authored. And this proposal would also abolish the Law of Return for Jews.

The NIF also finances Jewish-led groups that seek to undermine Israel's Jewish identity, such as the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The New Israel Fund for Deepening the Jewish-Arab Rift

Love of the Land: NIF-Funded NGOs: Goldstone's Building Blocks

NIF-Funded NGOs: Goldstone's Building Blocks

NGO Monitor
09 February '10

The New Israel Fund (NIF) and its grantees have been widely criticized for their involvement in the Goldstone report. This preliminary report presents an overview of how NIF-funded NGOs contributed to and endorsed the Goldstone process. Also included are brief summaries of the activities of 20 NGOs funded by NIF.

The Goldstone 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, NIF-funded NGOs – including B’Tselem, ACRI, Gisha, PHR-I, and Yesh Din – have continued to support Goldstone and lobby 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 NGOs and the NIF launched an offensive against critics. NIF supporters accuse 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 NGOs 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.

Click here to read the full report.

Love of the Land: NIF-Funded NGOs: Goldstone's Building Blocks

Love of the Land: An assault of illogic

An assault of illogic

Fresnozionism.org
06 February '10

The flap over Im Tirtzu’s exposé of the New Israel Fund’s (NIF) support of left-wing Israeli organizations that contributed to the slanderous Goldstone report gets bigger every day.

Naomi Chazan, the fund’s president, was dis-invited from a speaking tour of Australia.

After Chazan threatened to sue the Jerusalem Post, the Post dropped her as a regular columnist.

There are calls in the Knesset to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the NIF and foreign funding of Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

A group of high-ranking reserve officers signed a petition supporting Im Tirtzu against the NIF.

It’s hard to exaggerate the feelings of most Israelis about the Goldstone report, which many see as a modern-day blood libel. Even many members of the so-called ‘peace camp’ feel that the report goes too far in crediting Palestinian accusations against Israel for alleged ‘war crimes’ in Gaza, while downplaying and ignoring real crimes perpetrated by Hamas. So when Im Tirtzu pointed out that the 16 Israeli groups that produced a large majority of the anti-IDF ‘documentation’ — most of which is clearly false — were all grantees of the NIF, there was immediate outrage against the US-based fund.

Supporters of the fund in Israel and the US struck back with an assault of illogic, red herrings, ad hominem arguments and manufactured outrage at Im Tirtzu’s advertisments, but did little to refute the content of its criticism.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: An assault of illogic

Love of the Land: 'Post' stops Chazan column after threat

'Post' stops Chazan column after threat

Jerusalem Post Staff
07 February '10

(Even though New Israel Fund continues to fund numerous organizations who conduct lawfare against Israel, it's elected officials, it's soldiers and citizens, this week it failed in it's efforts to intimidate at least, one newspaper.)

The Jerusalem Post has canceled Naomi Chazan’s biweekly column, after she and the New Israel Fund of which she is president threatened legal action against the paper over a recent advertisement.

The decision was taken by Jerusalem Post management after a legal threat was received at the paper from the NIF and Chazan’s lawyers.

Along with other publications, the Post last Sunday carried an advertisement criticizing Chazan and the New Israel Fund in the context of the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.

In Friday’s paper, the Post carried an advertisement defending the NIF and Chazan against their critics.

Love of the Land: 'Post' stops Chazan column after threat

Love of the Land: The New Israel Fund and the next war

The New Israel Fund and the next war

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
05 February '10

A regional war may well be approaching. The actions and statements of Iran and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian proxies over the past week or so indicate that this is what Israel's enemies are gunning for.

In preparing for this growing threat, Israel's leaders need to consider more than just the military challenges it faces. They must consider the political actors at home and abroad that limit the IDF's ability to fight to victory and develop strategies for neutralizing those actors.

The latest developments are menacing. Last Saturday, Iran's unelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to open up a new round of hostilities on February 11. Then Wednesday, Iran launched a new missile into space. Israeli and US missile experts claim that the missile launch signals that Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles and building the capacity to launch nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.

Following the missile launch, Syria's president and foreign minister issued incendiary comments threatening Israel with war. Notably, they did so the same day the US informed Syria of its intention to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in five years.

Hamas, for its part, sent barrels of explosives drifting to the Israeli coastline - exposing new ways it can kill us. And Fatah, for its part, decided to kiss Hamas's ring this week. Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath's obsequious visit to Gaza Wednesday was a graphic demonstration of Hamas's preeminence in Palestinian society.

Then there is Hizbullah. In a speech on January 15, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged that the next war will "change the face of the region."

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The New Israel Fund and the next war

Love of the Land: Hey, NIF! Criticism is a democratic right

Hey, NIF! Criticism is a democratic right

It’s strange that groups claiming to be well-versed in human rights seem so unfamiliar with the concept of free speech.


Anne Herzberg
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost
03 February '10

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.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Hey, NIF! Criticism is a democratic right

Love of the Land: New Israel Fund Appearance Cancelled - Consequences

New Israel Fund Appearance Cancelled - Consequences

Solomon
Solomonia.com
04 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Whatever the conclusion, at least the NIF is a controversial issue now, and they and their friends are not helping with the tactics they've used in their counterattack: Australian groups cancel Chazan appearances

Former Israeli lawmaker Naomi Chazan's visit to Australia was canceled following allegations that the organization she heads helped provide information for the Goldstone report.

Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, was invited by the Union for Progressive Judaism -- the Australian equivalent of the Reform movement -- to address fund-raisers next week for the United Israel Appeal in Melbourne and Sydney .

(Continue full post)

More consequences? Today's Haaretz Headline: Amid row over contentious ad, Jerusalem Post fires Naomi Chazan of New Israel Fund

Love of the Land: New Israel Fund Appearance Cancelled - Consequences

Love of the Land: On Free Speech and Informed Public Debate: An Open Letter to NIF and Affiliated NGOs

On Free Speech and Informed Public Debate: An Open Letter to NIF and Affiliated NGOs

Gerald Steinberg/NGO Monitor Staff
NGO Monitor
02 February '10

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.

(Read full letter)

Love of the Land: On Free Speech and Informed Public Debate: An Open Letter to NIF and Affiliated NGOs