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.
...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 Bennett for immoral ‘anonymous suggestion’ while it ignores outrageously immoral Jew-hate, it doesn’t reveal moral probity. It reveals moral hypocrisy....
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