The New
Israel Fund (NIF) is a Non-Government Organization (NGO) that focuses its
attention on Israel. Its Homepage announces its mission: “Advancing democracy
and equality for all Israelis”.
The NIF, for
all its nice words, doesn’t support the Jewish Cause (building, growing and
protecting the Jewish state). It seems to support the ‘Palestinian Cause’ over
the Jewish Cause.
The NIF
website tells you about peace, civility and equality in Israel. Unfortunately, it
doesn’t promote any of that. Some say it has a different agenda: to fund those
who want Israel criminalized in world courts, who want to see the downfall of
Israel’s economy and who want to usher in a state of Palestine absent any
considerable Jewish presence” (Ronn Torossian,“Charging Israel With War Crimes
is a New Israel Fund Endeavor “, Algemeiner, January 26, 2015).
NIF is in
the news right now for denouncing Jewish Home Party leader Naftali Bennet (Gil
Ronen, “New Israel Fund: Bennett Abuses Arabs”, Arutz Sheva, February 5,
2015). Naftali Bennet may be many things, but to most Israelis he doesn’t have
a reputation for incitement, abuse or prejudice. Nevertheless, in its effort to
promote its ‘peace and equality’, the NIF has attacked Bennet for, among other
things, abusing Arabs.
NIF wrote
about Bennet on its Facebook, "An Israeli in our eyes is one who does not
incite, who does not stifle speech, who does not act patronizingly toward
Mizrahi Jews and other sectors, who does not rule out the homosexuals and
lesbians as a public with equal rights, who does not abuse Arabs” (ibid).
The NIF accused
Bennet of “incitement and lies” (ibid)--but offered no details to buttress its
accusation. It gave no evidence that such accusations were legitimate.
You’d think
that if the NIF were truly interested in ‘equality’, it would treat both
parties –Arab and Jew--equally. That is, if NIF was legitimately focussed on
‘equality in Israel’, it would practice what it preached.
It would
denounce every incitement, lie or abuse it found from both Arab and Jew alike.
It would document its accusations. It would make clear to all that they were being
monitored equally.
But the NIF
doesn’t do that. It doesn’t pursue incitement, lies and abuse by ‘Palestinians’
with as much vigour as it pursues Jews. It focuses its attacks on Jews alone.
If the NIF will denounce the Israeli Bennet because of some unnamed ' Arab abuse', what should it do with someone who openly and explicitly abuses Jews by dehumanizing them in TV? Shouldn’t NIF publish a tirade against
those individuals, too?
Surely, NIF
recognizes that the dehumanization of another group is not a hallmark of one
who seeks peace with that group. Try calling your future mother-in-law a pig.
How much peace-in-the-family is that going to bring?
If the NIF
truly wished to promote 'equality', why does it limit itself to denouncing only one side--Naftali Bennet--for “anonymous quotes”? It
can denounce real quotes.
It can
denounce Palestinian Authority (PA) TV for broadcasting real quotes that say Jews
are ‘apes and pigs’. For example, during a recent sermon (January 30, 2015), PA
TV broadcast a cleric doing exactly that (Itamar Marcus, “PA TV sermon: Jews are
‘apes and pigs’”, Palestinian Media Watch, February 5, 2015).
Surely, the
NIF knows that when you refer to another group as ‘apes and pigs’ you
dehumanize them. Surely, the NIF realizes that one does not customarily treat
apes and pigs as equals. Just as surely, NIF realizes that the purpose of
dehumanization is to make it easier for the TV viewer to kill the one being
dehumanized (it’s psychologically easier to kill a pig than it is to kill a human
being).
The NIF
could demonstrate how it seeks ‘equality’ by denouncing ‘apes and pigs’ with as
much spirit as it denounces ‘anonymous quotes’. But it doesn’t.
It could
have denounced other PA TV broadcasts in September 2014 and March 2014 in which
Jews were, yet again, called, ‘apes and pigs’ (ibid). It could have could
denounced the TV-broadcast poem:
“You have
been condemned to humiliation and hardship
O Sons of
Zion [Jews], O most evil among creations
O barbaric apes,
O wretched pigs" (ibid).
What did NIF
say about a PA TV broadcast that showed a child speak of shooting “all the
Jews’ (May 2, 2014)? Nothing.
What did NIF
say when PA TV broadcast a song that declared that Tiberias, Acre, Haifa, and
Jaffa are in "my country Palestine" (January 15, 2015)? Nothing.
What did NIF
say when a Hamas student bloc at Al-Quds University re-enacted the murder of
Jews at prayer as a celebratory video (January 12, 2015)? Nothing.
What did NIF
say when PA TV broadcast a Fatah event that honoured a terrorist killer--and
called Israel "the poison in the snake's fangs" (January 9, 2015)?
Nothing (see PMW.org for sources).
The NIF does
not promote ‘equality’. It has nothing to say about Arab demonization and
dehumanization of Israel and Jews. Instead, it hounds and harasses Jews who defend
what is Jewish.
The NIF’s professed
dedication to peace and equality link it to the Humanitarian ethos. But when it
denounces Bennet for immoral ‘anonymous suggestion’ while it ignores outrageously
immoral Jew-hate, it doesn’t reveal moral probity. It reveals moral hypocrisy.
Instead of
promoting peace, the NIF turns Humanitarianism into an implicit support for genocide.
Is that what
the NIF is after?
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