Coteret

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel | Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross; Dorit Abramovitch; Amir Paz-Fuchs| News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community;Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper; Following the Im Tirzu campaign: First Knesset steps against NIF; Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010; Debunking the Im Tirzu report part I: Keshev’s Yizhar Be’er; Debunking the Im Tirzu report part II: Ha’ir media critic on journalism as propaganda; Delegitimization and censorship continue: JPost stops publishing Naomi Chazan’s columns |

Much to note in this bizarre tale, so characteristic of a country in a tailspin: how it took AIPAC types to beat the Israeli parliament back to its senses (albeit for self-interested reasons); how Likud liberal-hawks stood up for the NIF and democracy, while MKs from the supposedly centrist Kadima led the charge; and, perhaps least surprisingly, Ehud Barak’s role.

Kicking the fund

Excerpt from column, Nahum Barnea, Yediot Friday Political Supplement, February 5 2010

Im Tirzu demonstration outside Prof. Naomi Chazan's home

It was a difficult week in the life of Prof. Naomi Chazan, a former Meretz MK and president of the New Israel Fund (NIF).  It started on Friday, in a report published by a right wing NGO in Ben Caspit’s column in Maariv.  The report asserted that 92 percent of the quotes hostile to Israel in the Goldstone report were provided by Israeli NGOs, most of which are supported by the NIF.  The report brought right wing demonstrators to Chazan’s house, accusing her of treason.  She was in New York, at a conference of the fund’s board of directors.  The atmosphere was hysterical.  They feared that donors would jump ship.  And then the news from Australia arrived: The Reform Movement in Australia, which invited Chazan for a lecture tour in Sydney and Melbourne, canceled its invitation.  The timing is not right, the Australian Jews explained.

All this was overshadowed by the initiative in the Knesset.  MK Otniel Schneller, who is still in Kadima, placed a proposal on the Knesset agenda to establish a parliamentary commission of inquiry to investigate the fund’s actions.  The proposal elicited interesting reactions.  Minister Michael Eitan (Likud) took the podium to pour cold water on the proposal.  “Such a thing has not happened,” Eitan said.  “Parliamentary commissions of inquiry are established on non-political issues, such as corruption in soccer or water prices.  It is impossible for the (right wing) majority in the Knesset to investigate the minority.”  Ruby Rivlin and Benny Begin (Likud) ruled out Schneller’s proposal for similar reasons.

Rivlin, Begin and Eitan, staunch right wingers, can afford to be democrats: No one will question their patriotism.  Members of Kadima and the Labor Party, however, went both ways.  Tzipi Livni did not intervene.  If the investigation is general, and not against a particular organization, she would not be shocked, she said.

It was one of those days when the hooligans of the Knesset came to light.  Former prison commissioner Arie Bibi, who is currently a Kadima MK, Danny Danon (Likud) and others, used words like “treason” and “fifth column.”  These are the words they know.

Foxman

The attack on the fund greatly troubled the American Jewish establishment.  An investigation in Israel could harm other Jewish organizations.  Questions will be raised about political involvement in a foreign country, dual loyalty and tax offenses. Anti-Defamation League Director Abe Foxman, who is not associated with the NIF, said to The Jewish Week that the accusations of the right wing NGO were impudent.  “It’s almost undemocratic,” Foxman said to me over the phone yesterday.

In the afternoon, Rivlin received a phone call from a leader of one of the Jewish organizations.  “Have you gone mad?” the man lashed out at Rivlin.  “You’re going to investigate us for funds we send to you?  You’re out of your minds.”

Barak

“I can’t stop it,” Rivlin said to him.  “It’s not within my authority.”  He called Netanyahu and reported to him about the call from New York.  Netanyahu turned to Schneller and convinced him to remove the proposal from the agenda.  Schneller says that he promised him to recruit the entire coalition to support the proposal, if the discussion of it would be postponed to next week.  Netanyahu mentioned Ehud Barak among the people who were pressuring him to support the establishment of the committee.  Barak wants to prove that he is defending the IDF against its defamers (Barak denies this.  On the contrary, his spokesman says.  True, Barak doesn’t like the attacks on the IDF, but he thinks that the committee is unnecessary).

Schneller withdrew the proposal.  A few hours later, he asked Rivlin to raise it again.  “Now it is within my authority,” Rivlin said, and refused.

Cross-posted from Promised Land.

David Horovitz

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel | Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross; Dorit Abramovitch; Amir Paz-Fuchs | News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community;Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper; Following the Im Tirzu campaign: First Knesset steps against NIF; Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010; Debunking the Im Tirzu report part I: Keshev’s Yizhar Be’er; Debunking the Im Tirzu report part II: Ha’ir media critic on journalism as propaganda |

Haaretz reveals today that following the right-wing campaign against the New Israel Fund, Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz informed NIF President Naomi Chazan that the paper will stop publishing her columns.

Yesterday Chazan received an e-mail from Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz, informing her the newspaper would cease publishing her column.

Chazan had provided the daily with one of its few leftist voices in recent years. Horovitz declined to respond to questions from Haaretz last night.

This is just one of several recent cases of self-censorship in the Israeli media: Both Maariv and Yediot, two of the leading tabloids in Israel, have decided recently not to publish major articles which were critical of Israel and the IDF.

Chazan, who was the target of a Der Sturmer style ads in the Israeli media, also commented on her personal feelings following the rightwing Im Tirzu movement’s campaign against her:

“I don’t know why they chose me – I can think of plenty of human rights supporters they could pick on. But I’m ever so proud to be a symbol of Israeli democracy. No doubt about it.”

Earlier this week, the Jewish community in Melbourne canceled a scheduled event with Chazan.

Dr. Amir Paz-Fuchs is a lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Ono Academic College and a member of the board of Bimkom — Planners for Planning Rights.

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel | Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross;Dorit Abramovitch | News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community;Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper; Following the Im Tirzu campaign: First Knesset steps against NIF; Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010; Debunking the Im Tirzu report part I: Keshev’s Yizhar Be’er; Debunking the Im Tirzu report part II: Ha’ir media critic on journalism as propaganda |

Im Tirzu (“if you wish”), we’ll tell you a fairytale

Ben Caspit

An ill wind is blowing and gloomy clouds are darkening our skies. Another red line was crossed last weekend. In an alarming and alarmist article, Maariv’s Ben Caspit expounded his political philosophy and gave generous space to a pathetic and superficial “investigation” carried out by an organization called Im Tirtzu (“if you wish”). According to the investigation and the article, the New Israel Fund supports many of the Israeli organizations that provided the Goldstone Committee with incriminating material relating to the IDF. The article was powerful enough to convince the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to consider establishing a committee of inquiry to examine the forwarding of information by Israeli organizations to the UN’s investigative committee.

The background to this investigation and the article is perfectly obvious. The Israel Police arrests a woman for wrapping herself in a prayer-shawl; regularly stops youths who are inoffensively walking in the Rechavia neighborhood of Jerusalem or the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa and carries out searches without legal grounds; disperses a demonstration that the court has ruled does not require a permit; and arrests human rights activists, including Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The Knesset comes up with its own initiatives – the Loyalty Law, the Citizenship Law, the Nakba Law – in order to deny Israeli Arabs their basic rights and the possibility to share a common fate in solidarity. Not to speak of the Infiltration Law, which threatens to imprison refugees or those who assist them for decades.

Ben Dror Yemini

These are just a few examples from the past few months alone; there are many others. Who is trying to stop this repellent flood? Civil society organizations, which are funded by the New Israel Fund, among other sources. The New Israel Fund supports over 300 organizations active in the fields of women’s rights, the struggle against racism, immigrant absorption, single-parent families, and promoting equality and social justice in Israel. For Ben-Dror Yemini, however, editor of the opinions section in Ma’ariv, all this is just a sophisticated cover. He is convinced that “most of the bodies supported by the New Israel Fund are active in delegitimizing Israel… They are the biggest enemy… of the free world and human rights.” No less! Caspit follows suit with manipulative malice: “Are these activities by the Fund actually intended to conceal radical actions that undermine the foundations of the Zionist state?” His Machiavellian allusions do not end there. Responding to a question from the “journalist,” Ronen Shoval, chairman of Im Tirtzu, claims that the authors of the investigation drew on the intelligence skills they acquired during their army service. After all, for Shoval there is no difference between collecting information about “organizations that support Hamas and the New Israel Fund.”

Ronen Shoval

The investigation names sixteen organizations that supposedly assisted Goldstone. The truth must be told: if the investigators of Im Tirtzu honed their skills in the Israeli Intelligence Corps then the IDF is in a worse state than we thought. A simple examination would have revealed that at least half of these organizations are not involved at all in the subject of the Gaza Strip, so that they could not possibly have had any information, let alone “incriminating” information, about the IDF operations. Many of the organizations are active in the field of human rights in general, and their publications were quoted in the Goldstone Report in chapters that have nothing to do with the fighting in Gaza. For example, one of the organizations mentioned in the Im Tirtzu investigation — Rabbis for Human Rights — appears in the context of a petition it submitted to prevent the demolition of homes in a Palestinian village in the Jordan Valley. The publications of  Bimkom — Planners for Planning Rights association mentioned in the investigation relate to Israel’s planning policies, which strangle any possibility of development by Palestinians in “Area C” in the West Bank. The association Itach — Women Lawyers for Social Justice did not appear at all in the Goldstone investigation.

Unsurprisingly, Shoval, Caspit, and Yemini piously declare that their sole interest is to reveal the truth and encourage freedom of expression. There is no element of revealing the truth here. Is the argument about freedom of expression sincere and substantive in this case? Far from it. This is the conclusion to be drawn not only from their political positions but also from their intentions. An extreme right-wing activist such as Itamar Ben-Gvir can acknowledge the importance of the position of human rights organizations in supporting the right to carry out vigils without police interference. As he explains, this has been his principled position for years. Similarly, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel supported the demand by Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel to march in Umm al-Fahm. Genuine human rights discourse certainly serves diverse political orientations. But this is not the discourse proffered by Yemini, Caspit, and Shoval. Their discourse is in keeping with the strategy of the organization NGO Monitor, and its purpose is to silence expression. It is not about freedom of expression, but freedom of denigration. Its purpose is not to enrich public discussion, or even to advance a particular political position within the free market of ideas. Rather, it seeks to trample the opposing position through lies, manipulation, intimidation (as in the headline Fifth Column in Caspit’s article), and demonization. This is McCarthyism, pure and simple. Now more than ever we must remember the words of Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel | Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross;Dorit Abramovitch | News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community;Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper; Following the Im Tirzu campaign: First Knesset steps against NIF; Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010; Debunking the Im Tirzu report part I: Keshev’s Yizhar Be’er |

Im Tirzu (“if you wish”), this is what we’ll write

What is the difference between Ben Caspit and a reporter?  A reporter would have checked the content of the charges that the organizations gave Goldstone, verified them or not, and establish his view of the issue based on his findings.  Caspit, however, does not care about verifying the facts; he is here to uphold the approach he came with

Itay Ziv [media critic], Ha’ir [Tel-Aviv weekly owned by Haaretz], February 5 2010 Issue [Hebrew original here]

The difference between Ben Caspit and a reporter is that a reporter checks the facts, and Ben Caspit does not have to.  Once they are included in the Goldstone report, for example, they are no longer important.  Why?  Well, because Justice Richard Goldstone is “a loathsome liar,” according to Caspit.  Let us, for the moment, set aside the question of why Goldstone did not file a libel suit against Caspit and Maariv, the newspaper he works for (probably because he is an internationally renown legal expert who does not care much about being slandered by this or that Caspit).  What is more important is the chain of the underlying assumptions of the Caspit article that adorned the cover of Maariv’s Musafshabat supplement last weekend (“The Stuff the Goldstone Report Is Made Of”) and was given a front-page banner (reading “The New Fund and the Industry of Lies”).

Ben Caspit

That article was based on an inspection conducted by a movement named Im Tirzu (“if you wish”), which argued that almost half of the Israeli sources quoted in the Goldstone report are organizations that have one thing in common: they are all sponsored by the New Israel Fund.  Furthermore, when Im Tirzu isolated only the negative quoted passages — that is, claims about IDF wrongdoing — it turned out that 92% of them were furnished by those same organizations.  Caspit and Maariv celebrated the “disclosure,” branded it “an exclusive scoop,” and carried fancy banners on the paper’s front pages, as noted.  This was a celebrated political charge sheet disguised as a journalistic achievement.  What exactly is the achievement?  After all, every remark cited in the [Goldstone] report came with a clear reference to its source, specifying exactly what organization it was taken from.  Furthermore, the fact that the NIF sponsors some of those organizations is no secret matter; it actually takes pride in that.  If Caspit had bothered to read the report properly, including its reference list, he would have single-handedly found the “incriminating material” that he is now celebrating.  As one of those who came out against the report from the day it was published, it was actually Caspit’s duty to do so.  It seems, however, that he did not do the bare minimum he was required to, and so he shamelessly established his article on a “research” by an ephemeral and clearly politically-motivated movement, gave it a stage it could not even dream of and, to validate his accusations – that is, its accusations – he even exalted its leader, a 29-years-old character.Thus he did the same thing he had attributed to the cooperation between the Goldstone committee and the Israeli human rights organizations: “they scratch each other’s back and promote each other, as long as their common agenda wins.”

Ad on page 3 of the January 31 edition of the Jerusalem Post.

The hidden assumption at the core of the Caspit article is that the Goldstone report is illegitimate and thus each and every one of the claims or testimonies it contains is false.  This a far-reaching assumption that was borrowed one-for-one from the government position — I am speaking of the broadest meaning of the term, referring not to the political position of the government under Netanyahu – against whom Caspit has been conducting a personal campaign, for his own reasons – but to the ruling position that currently stands above the facts.  This is the core difference between Ben Caspit and a true reporter.  A reporter would have first checked the facts and, based on those, would determine his position later.  Caspit, however, has a basic attitude toward the facts the article is based on it.  In the specific case before us, a reporter would have checked the content of the claims that the organizations made to Goldstone, verified them or not, and established his view of the issue based on his findings.  If he found them wrong, he would have had an opportunity to screw those organizations, as well as Goldstone himself, which is what Caspit, the star of the Maariv team, has been dreaming of.  Caspit, however, does not care about verifying the facts; he is here to uphold the approach that he came with and, in most cases, he does that by simply declaring it.  In philosophy, this is called “assuming the consequent.”In this case, this conceptual distortion bred a journalistic absurdity.  Throughout his entire piece, Caspit rages against a series of arguments and quotations without citing their reference or verifying their veracity.  He hides that because, no matter what their content might be, once they were given to Goldstone, he views them as “contaminated” – that is, scheming against him and the position he serves, which is why they are compartmentalized.  In this context, we should pay attention to Caspit’s choice of words when he describes how it worked:  “The organizations provided him (Goldstone, I.Z.) with the references… offering the committee incriminating materials.”  That is to say, no one argues that the testimonies were true (they have “references”) and that they can substantiate real accusations against the IDF activities (they are “incriminating”), and the only trouble is that now this has been made known abroad as well – and that should have been prevented.

This is how journalism serves propaganda.

Read more…

Yizhar Be’er is the Director of Keshev — The Center for Protection of Democracy in Israel. Below is a synopsis of a report he published today, which methodically analyzes and debunks the Im Tirzu “report” attacking the New Israel Fund. The full report in Hebrew can be downloaded here.

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel | Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross; Dorit Abramovitch | News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community; Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper; Following the Im Tirzu campaign: First Knesset steps against NIF; Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010 |

“Im Tirtzu”: If you will it… or just full of it?

The “Im Tirtzu” movement has published a report on the involvement of organizations supported by the New Israel Fund in shaping the conclusions of the Goldstone Report, blaming them for causing serious damage to the state. Sources in the media and the Knesset have also blamed these organizations for harming the national interests of the State of Israel. Keshev analyses the report’s structural flaws and brings to light facts that the Israeli media did not relate about the identity and motives of its authors.

Im Tirzu demonstration outside Prof. Naomi Chazan's home

The Im Tirtzu movement has recently published a report attacking the New Israel Fund and organizations that it supports for their involvement in the report prepared by the Goldstone Commission, the commission appointed by the UN to investigate events in Operation Cast Lead. The report has gained widespread media exposure. Coverage of the report and interviews with its authors appeared in Ma’ariv, Channel 2, Channel 1, IDF Radio and Reshet Bet of the Voice of Israel. On the basis of this report, Im Tirtzu, which defines itself as a “centrist extra-parliamentary movement that strives to strengthen the values of Zionism in Israel”, has launched a public campaign against the New Israel Fund. Its activists, garbed in keffiyahs, have protested outside the home of former Knesset Member Naomi Chazan, President of the New Israel Fund. In the report itself and in media interviews, the movement’s leaders claim that the New Israel Fund is a fifth column that damages the security of the state.

A meticulous review of the Im Tirtzu report finds that it is tendentious, biased and rife with failings and distortions. The report analyses the sources of information in the Goldstone Report based on the footnotes that appear in it, while ignoring many other sources upon which it relies including government Ministers, generals, government institutions and major media outlets in Israel, including Ma’ariv. By the logic of the report, they too, should be blamed for “causing serious political harm to Israel and damaging the state’s military capability to defend itself during wartime”, and like the New Israel Fund, they too, should be considered “extremist leftists, anti-Zionists” (in the words of the report.)

Hagai El-Ad is the Director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). He blogs at the Huffington Post, where he recently posted an incisive article on Sheikh Jarrah.

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel| Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross; Dorit Abramovitch | News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community; Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper; Following the Im Tirzu campaign: First Knesset steps against NIF |

Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010

Ad on page 3 of the January 31 edition of the Jerusalem Post.

The deliberations in the Knesset yesterday (February 3 2010) breathed new life into Joseph McCarthy’s legacy. After a week of incitement against the New Israel Fund (NIF) and its human rights grantees, the nonsense reached parliament. And as if carefully reading the instructions for would-be new McCarthys (“McCarthysm is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence”), here’s how Israel’s parliament deliberated with the upmost seriousness the “Data transfer for the Goldstone Report by the NIF and lefty organizations”. The discussion did not only demonstrate utter disregard to facts, it actually defied common sense. Here’s an eclectic tasting-menu from yet another day in the ongoing project of dismantling Israel’s democracy.

MK Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi – New National Religious Party) begun with a short introduction to the concept of treason: “My friends the members of the Knesset. Treason was defined as a crime so to prevent soldiers and civilians from providing ammunition to the enemy to destroy Israel. That’s treason… The Goldstone Report, I think, is the harshest report issued by the UN against Israel, and Israel, in my opinion, wall to wall, is trying to undermine the report, refute the lies, the libel presented there. And we realize that we are fighting against a report that threatens us as much as war. Is nothing less than war. It gives legitimacy to fuel Israel’s worst enemies to fight us. And if there’s a premium mitzvah, it’s the commandment to undermine and erase the Goldstone Report. But what do we discover? That within us, among citizens of our country, from [Israeli] organizations, they feed, provide, give information, help falsification of facts, a huge amount, an amazing percentage, to support the Goldstone Report. So you ask me – does it constitute treason according to criminal law? Probably not. You ask me if it constitutes moral treason? Yes and yes.”

MK Danny Danon (Likud) presented the concept of truth: “The question is very simple and we will know the answer within a few months. If these organizations did not give false information to the Goldstone Report – then all the fuss is for nothing. I’d be wasting precious time of the Israeli Knesset. But if they indeed passed false information to Israel’s enemies – if they fed them false data – we need to say: enough.”

This suggests the following philosophical question: what is a worse crime – feeding one’s enemies with false data, or with real one? Or, putting the sarcasm aside for a moment: how is MK Danon going to find out if the questions raised with regard to the IDF’s conduct during Cast Lead are true or false, if there won’t be any credible investigation into Cast Lead?

MK Chaim Amsellem (Shas) seemed terrified, while continuing to demonize: “Jewish and Israeli people, with a clear agenda that is very specific, their voice sounds constantly, on all channels… they get a stage everywhere, are professors at universities, serve in public bodies; each report they publish and every fragment of a press release that they issue receives disproportional headlines and becomes the talk of the day – without almost having anything to really discuss.” Terrifying indeed! Perhaps these dangerous individuals should somehow be silenced? But it gets even more terrifying. Something truly sinister is lurking in the dark, but the courageous defenders of Israel will soon expose it. Read on.

Senator Joseph McCarthy

Environment Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) seemed reassuring with his kind words, that there’s no suspicion of anti-Semitism involved: “I do not mean, in any case, at least in my eyes, to go to each and every donor to the NIF and say: you are actually a partner to anti-Semitism and to deliberately harming Israel”. Thank you minister! But – then again – one can never be too careful, right? It might be anti-Semitism after all: “We need to make sure that there’s no campaign of concealment, that under the guise of social programming for human rights they are actually acting in an anti-Semitic campaign to deny the right to self-determination of the Jewish people.”

So: is it anti-Semitism or not? Erdan helps us solve the dilemma: “Those organizations, companies and friends, are part of the global campaign of radical, extremist Islam, in its fight against the free West…” One has to wonder – is Erdan the new local prophet of neoconservatism?

MK Nissim Zeev (Shas) demonstrated copywriting skills when renaming NIF the “New Ishmael Fund”. MK Ilan Gilon (Meretz) demonstrated talent in his rebuttal of this never ending nonsense: “You can perform a nation-wide rectoscopy to everyone you wish.”

MK Arie Eldad (Ihud Leumi), a physician who opted not to discuss proctology in his remarks, wrapped things up by bringing us back to our key original theme, treason: “I want to explain to you why we need to submit this topic to the Labor, Welfare and Health Committee — since this is a health issue. There’s the issue of noise. The hierarchy of noises I know begins with a birdsong, chamber orchestra, rock band, to the sound of a Merkava tank. The next level of noise is that produced in these Knesset chambers when catching the Arabs and the Israeli left performing treason.”

MK Eldad seemed to be rejoicing in the sound of catching those lefty, Arab traitors. I was hearing noises too – but found no reason for joy. Catching traitors? I don’t think so. The sounds I was hearing were those of Senator Joseph McCarthy grinning at us from the past, rising from his grave. The noises of the undoing of a democracy.

Cross-posted from Promised Land.

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel| Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross; Dorit Abramovitch | News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community; Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper |

Following the Im Tirzu campaign: First Knesset steps against NIF

We should see the attack on the New Israel Fund in context: this was no isolated event, but part of a widespread campaign against human rights and peace activists

David Rotem

The Knesset committee for legislation decided Wednesday to look into foreign donations to non-profit organizations operating in Israel, and among them, those received and disbursed by the New Israel Fund. The investigation will be led by the chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK David Rotem (Israel Beitenu,) and a special subcommittee, to be formed immediately. Meanwhile, MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) is pushing for a special Knesset investigation aimed against all Israeli human rights organizations which testified before the Goldstone commission.

Maariv reports that in a heated debate at the Knesset legislation committee, MK Zevulun Orlev (NRP) accused the NIF, Meretz party and the Israeli left of treason, no less:

“…NIF sponsors elements which are hostile to the state, and [by doing so] it causes us an unimaginable damage, not unlike our worse enemies… Meretz party has crossed the lines… former MK Naomi Chazan, which heads the NIF, has also crossed the lines.”

Yulia Shamalov Berkovich

MK Yulia Shamalov-Berkovich from opposition party Kadima joined the attack on the NIF in saying that:

“We must say to all Israel-haters that enough is enough. We won’t sit quietly when our enemies from home try to lead an undemocratic revolution here, encouraging boycott, desertion and pacifistic refusal to serve in the IDF, based on lies and distortions. We must draw our lines and tell the traitors to our people that this is enough.”

Im Tirzu, a right-wing nonprofit organization, has launched last week a campaign against the NIF, claiming it sponsors organizations that support Hamas. In a front page story in Maariv, senior political correspondent Ben Caspit quoted a “research” by Im Tirzu, which supposedly showed how the NIF was responsible for 92 percent of the anti-Israeli evidence in the Goldstone report. Caspit went even further, and raised the notion the all the NIF activities in Israel – the fund aids more than 300 grassroots and social justice organizations – are a cover for anti-Israeli subversion.

Gilad Erdan

Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) which represented the government in the Knesset debate, praised Im Tirzu: “it is a Zionist organization, which is doing a very important and positive work.” During the debate, minister Erdan referred to judge Goldstone as “this liar”.

—————————

One of the contributors to the progressive Jewschool blog asked yesterday how this campaign against the NIF and other nonprofits different from the smear campaigns we have seen against the left in the past.

While it is true that the Right has been attacking human rights organizations for as long as they existed in Israel, things have changed in the last few months, and those who care about Israeli politics should be aware of those changes.

Ad on page 3 of the January 31 edition of the Jerusalem Post.

For start, the nature and the intensity of the attack changed. The Im Tirzu ads against the NIF shocked many American Jews — they reminded almost everyone of anti-Semitic cartoons — but in Israel they were considered legitimate. The tabloids had no problem publishing them, and you can still catch them as banners on popular news sites as Ynet.co.il and nrg.co.il. In fact, I don’t know of a paper or site that refused to run this ad. What’s even more important is the personalized nature of the attack – specifically targeting the head of the NIF, Naomi Chazan. We haven’t seen such viscous personal attacks since the assassination of PM Yitzhak Rabin.

Second, and unlike the attack on left wing politicians during the Oslo days, this time it is not only the political right that goes after human rights activists. And it’s not just smears. We are talking official government and Knesset policies, and real measures being taken. When minister Erdan praised Im Tirzu in the Knesset, he did so as the official representative of the government to the committee. This government includes even the labor party (though some labor MK’s came out in the NIF’s defense). In fact, some of the dominant figures in the campaign against the NIF are MK’s from opposition party Kadima, which under Tzipi Livni claim to represent the pro-peace alternative to Netanyahu’s Likud! Kadima’s official website even posted Im Tirzu’s accusations against the NIF.

Going after the left is now a policy which crosses party lines in Israel, with some of Israel’s most notable media people – Avri Gilad, Yair Lapid, Ben Dror Yemini and more – making a habit of attacking human rights organizations. Gilad and Yemini specifically joined the campaign against the NIF, repeating right wing lies and distorting facts. and if that’s wasn’t enough, this morning, the Israeli Government Press Office translated and disseminated Yemini’s article. Read more…

Dorit Abramovitch is an Israeli feminist and LGBT campaigner, writer and lecturer.  A Hebrew version of this article appears on NRG, the Maariv website.

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel| Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross| News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community; Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer; Two senior Maariv reporters attack the anti-NIF campaign sponsored by their newspaper |

How we became enemies of the state

The attack on the New Israel Fund, claiming it help the Goldstone report, is an attack on equality and freedom and an attempt to silence dissent

A year ago 23 women’s organizations came together to protest the attempt by the attorney general to investigate and erase the New Profile movement. Feminist organizations from a range of perspectives understood that trying to silence New Profile marked not only an attempt to discriminate against anyone who opposes government policy, but also was a sign of what was to come — persecution of any movement, man or woman who use words that are not taken from the dictionary of occupation and exclusion.

For decades those who were discriminated against by the dominant Jewish narrative have been claiming that the discrimination and oppression would not stop with the Palestinians, would not be stopped by the separation wall, would not stop with the exclusion of the Arab public in Israel, but would deteriorate down the sliding slope to encompass any group that does not follow the single nationalist line.

Ad on page 3 of the January 31 edition of the Jerusalem Post.

In a country where freedom of expression and a life of dignity are reserved for only a specific segment of the population to begin with, it comes as no surprise that the campaign of silencing and intimidation is now continuing with the attempt to crush the New Israel Fund. And the attackers speak openly — their only predatory claim is that some people speak in a different language than them, and the only charge against them is that they dared to criticize the Israeli government’s acts of predation. This is what is happening today and what has been happening for a long time in this country that is said to be a democracy, but that name is merely a thin skin.

How long can we continue saying that systematic discrimination never stops with a single public? When government policy is chronically loaded with serial intimidation, when the government constantly uses intimidation from the enemy that is about to pounce and destroy at any moment, when ministers decide to bomb and shell during election campaigns to gain a few more votes and seats, when popular opposition to theft, killing and wars can end with arrests and investigations, it is no surprise that the silencing is spreading to more and more organizations. In a country where the freedom to resist hangs on a thread, in a country where obedience is a desirable value, in a country where it is frightening to demonstrate because any man and woman can find themselves beaten and locked in a cell for daring not to agree — it is no wonder that the governmental race to silence and deafen this week received another push to the bottom.

It is scary to live and it is scary to talk

The attack on the New Israel Fund and its president Prof. Naomi Chazan is supported by a long-standing policy of intimidation and silencing because the big enemy is long since anybody who is different from the one, big, well-fed Jew. The enemy is called “the Arabs,” “the woman,” “the mizrahi,” “the unemployed,” “the demonstrator against land appropriations and the separation wall,” “the draft refuser,” “the labor migrant,” “the organization that argues against war crimes,” “funds that support an active civil society,” “male and female immigrants from the former Soviet Union,” “Ethiopian men and women,” “mizrahi girl students,” “lesbians, trans-, bisexuals and homosexuals.” All pose a threat to the united, white, male, militant, obedient Jewish nationalism. And anyone who endangers unity, finds that his or her freedom is in danger, and maybe even his or her life.

In a country where obedience is a value and it is dangerous to criticize the actions and words of the government, in a country where the right to demonstrate is given only to a small and shrinking minority, and where it is scary to protest and cry out against increasing oppression, in a country that maintains countless separation walls and systematic discrimination against anyone who speaks not in the voice of the one — it is scary to live and it is scary to speak, because the silencing does not stop with a single political minority. It draws more and more populations into it. Very few can escape anymore from most of us being enemies of the state.

Merav David

As Noam Sheizaf demonstrates, Maariv, Israel’s third-largest newspaper, has been a primary instrument for the dissemination of the recently launched anti-NIF smear campaign. To its credit, however, the newspaper has hosted dissenting opinion on a daily basis, in both the print and online editions. This morning (February 3 2010,) two senior reporters, social affairs correspondent Merav David and diplomatic affairs correspondent Maya Bengel, published a particularly incisive criticism of the campaign and related Israeli policies. A translation with links to supporting documentation is provided below.

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel| Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar; Aeyal Gross| News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community; Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer |

Don’t silence

Op-ed, Merav David and Maya Bengal, Maariv February 3 2010 [Hebrew originals: print; online]

Maya Bengel

The Im Tirtzu movement declares in its advertisements that its purpose is “a second Zionist revolution in public discourse in Israel.” If we were to judge it on the basis of the campaign it launched this week against the New Israel Fund (NIF), it would see that Im Tirtzu’s Zionist revolution  includes an annulment of Israeli democracy.Im Tirtzu published a report this week that reviews statements that were submitted to the Goldstone commission by Israeli human rights organizations that receive financing from the New Israel Fund. The report and the campaign that followed in its wake accuse the New Israel Fund and the organizations responsible for the publication of a blood libel against the IDF and of collaboration with the enemy. The campaign absolutely delegitimizes organizations that are extraordinarily vital for Israeli democracy, even when they voice criticism that is painful to hear.The more severe problem is that the discourse that that campaign represents has trickled down into the Israeli media, including this very newspaper in which this article has been published, as if this were a central and normative school of thought in Israeli society. The article that was published by Ma’ariv cast Ronen Shoval, the chairman of Im Tirtzu, as “married with two children, lives in Ramat Hasharon, secular, served in the Armored Corps”—the good old fashioned good Israeli. The truth is that Shoval represents a nationalist organization with an extremist ideology that calls for an end to freedom of speech, in the event that the speaker belongs to a “subversive” organization, such as the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Ad on page 3 of the January 31 edition of the Jerusalem Post.

There is no problem with the fact that the report was published, but the question is how it is to be treated. When the datum that was prominently cited in all reports was that 92% of the quotes from Israeli sources that substantiate Goldstone’s allegations against the IDF originated with organizations that are funded by the New Israel Fund, it sounds sensational. But even the report itself admits that the organizations funded by the New Israel Fund constituted only 14% of the sources the Goldstone report used. For some reason, that datum was not reported by the media. It wasn’t a good idea to report it prominently because then the story would have shrunk back to its natural proportions—yet another news item and hardly a foundation for a campaign of incitement.After all, Judge Goldstone visited Gaza. Did he need the Israeli human rights organizations necessarily? Aren’t there other human rights organizations? Doesn’t the UN have bases in Gaza? The fine print of the report are filed with ludicrous information. Among the 16 organizations that are cited as having collaborated with Goldstone is the movement Itach, whose sole purpose is to defend impoverished women (what was the organization’s crime? It signed a petition calling for the establishment of an Israeli investigative committee), and the Kol Aher movement, which comprised Sderot residents, which submitted testimony by Israelis to the Goldstone commission.But even if we were to accept the validity of the argument that without the Israelis’ contribution there wouldn’t have been a Goldstone report, does the information that was submitted to the UN commission constitute a blood libel?  And if it does, why were criminal investigations launched in the wake of those complaints by the Military Police? Why did Judge Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avi Mandelblit said to Ha’aretz that B’Tselem, which “stars” in the report, helps the army clarify complaints and “aspires like we do to the investigation of the truth?”  Is the death of eight members of a single family, one of whom was a two-year-old toddler, by a phosphorous bomb, not a complaint that ought to be looked into? It certainly is against the backdrop of reports about two high-ranking officers who had a disciplinary hearing after they approved the use of phosphorous bombs and endangered lives.

Read more…

Professor Aeyal Gross is a faculty member  in the law faculty of Tel Aviv University, a guest lecturer at the University of London, and research fellow  at the Human Rights  Program at Harvard Law School. His bio is available at www.aeyalgross.com. A Hebrew version of this article was published on Prof. Gross’s blog this morning (February 2 2010.)

Other recent posts on the latest wave of suppression of dissent in Israel | Essays Hadas Ziv; Hagai El-Ad; Yariv Mohar | News and analysis IDF joins assault on Israeli human rights community; Israeli media goes after New Israel Fund: “Responsible for Goldstone Report”; Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer |

Could it be the end? Killing the messenger, part 2

When I published my “Killing the Messenger” article on International Human Rights Day, I described, so it appears, not only things that had happened by then, but also things that have gotten worse over the weeks since.  A letter from human rights groups to the Israeli prime minister described a chain of attacks on HR organizations.  The arrests of demonstrators in Sheikh Jarrah and the attack on the New Israel Fund are two important and recent developments in this context.  The arrests continued even though the courts have repeatedly stated that the protest vigils held there are  legal and require no permit.  The arrests of demonstrators gained some media attention after ACRI Executive Director Hagai El-Ad was arrested too, though the point was not, as El-Ad remarked, the fact that he was placed in custody.  These arrests cannot be dissociated from the attacks against human rights organizations, on which I elaborated in a previous article.  Again, they go after the messenger.  We should pay attention to the way these attacks make the focus of discussion shift from the wrongdoing in Sheikh Jarrah to issues such as freedom of expression and protest, important as they may be, though in this case it seems that protests against the attempts to deny the freedom of expression draw attention to the issue at hand.

The recent attack against the New Israel Fund and Prof Naomi Chazan by an organization whose name I would not even mention here set a new record in ugliness and fascist conduct.

Plenty of information is being published on these topics in recent days.  I wish to thank those who write about these issues more frequently than I do, and recommend that you watch for the various articles, including by ACRI.  When we put together the attacks against human rights organizations, the continuation of the appalling situation in the territories, the exacerbated and continuous settlers violence against the Palestinians, and the fact that the army and the police are indifferent at best, and cooperate with them in the worst case scenario (several recent TV reports showed things we have known for quite a long time), we are left with a very heavy feeling concerning the ever-worsening situation of what was left, if at all, from the Israeli democracy.  As explained before, the state of continued occupation itself is denying the basic foundations of democracy.  Now, we witness a series of attacks against bodies that try to revive whatever was left of that democracy.  The threat posed by and the danger entailed in those attacks cannot be overstated.

If there is any consolation here, it is Read more…