| Feb |
| 08 |
I am back from the United States where I took part to the Board meeting of the « New Israel Fund » (www.nif.org)
During 30 years of existence, NIF raised funds, essentially in the US and distributed around 200 millions $ to hundreds of Israeli NGOs, which are active in the fields of social justice, human rights, minority rights and religious pluralism.
In doing so, NIF has largely contributed to the development and the diversity of the civil society in Israel.
Since months, values of social justice and respect of fundamental rights are threatened within the State of Israel. This degradation has accelerated since « Operation Cast Lead » in Gaza last year.
Several weeks ago Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of long time New Israel Fund (NIF) grantee the Israel Religious Action Centre, the legal advocacy arm of the Reform movement, was hauled into a police station, fingerprinted and interrogated for her prayer sessions at the Kotel with Women of the Wall. A week later, it was the arrest of Hagai El-Ad, the CEO of NIF’s flagship grantee the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), during a peaceful demonstration in East Jerusalem that ACRI was monitoring to protect freedom of speech. He spent 36 hours in prison.
Now it is the turn of the New Israel Fund itself to be under attack.
Last week a new organisation made a big splash in Israel by accusing the New Israel Fund and its grantees of being behind the Goldstone Report. Timed to capitalise on the anger many Israelis feel about the Goldstone conclusions, it was personalised with a particularly despicable attack on NIF President Naomi Chazan. (http://www.nif.org/images/chazan-ad.jpg)
Naomi Chazan has been a member of the Knesset during 11 years and is renowned worldwide for her academic and political engagement, the feminist and moral values she defends as well as the work she has been leading during years for a just peace between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people.
The attack was the latest salvo in a coordinated attempt to de-legitimise civil society, repress the activities of the human rights community and weaken Israeli democracy. This new group is part funded by an American Pastor, John Hagee, who once said that the Holocaust was a good thing because it created the state of Israel. This has been followed by attempts to bring a private member’s bill in the Knesset to investigate NIF and its grantees. In regard to Gaza, it was those human rights organisations that examined and reported on human rights concerns during and after the Gaza operation who were the first to declare that the Israeli government must launch an independent inquiry into the events of Gaza. They were acting out of a profound sense of patriotism and love of Israel. Their views on the subsequent Goldstone report are not monolithic and differ on many issues, including their conclusions in regard to the report.
Such attacks have not yet taken place in the Israeli political culture and show how the values carried by an important part of the civil society are in danger.
Israel is not the first democracy having been confronted to grave attempts against freedom of expression, the right to criticise and free debate.
Nobody has forgotten the witch-hunt, which took place in the US in the fifties and which forced many intellectuals and artists to flee their country to escape to aggressive interrogations and sometimes prison.
Numerous prominent Israelis signed a petition in support to the New Israel Fund and its president: « We are also the New Israel Fund »
Leaders from different Jewish communities expressed their disgust in face of those attacks which remind dramatic periods of the history, where European Jews were victims of anti-Semitism and Nazi propaganda.
Some articles related which might interest you
1. Jstreet responds to attacks on the New Israel Fund:
http://www.jstreet.org/blog/?p=817
2. Gideon Levy: Im Tirtzu hides behind respectable mask of ‘Zionism’
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1148014.html
3. Not related to Im Tirtzu, but another good article is Burston’s “Fear of peace will be the death of Israel” <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147257.html>
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