Blog

NIF in the Crosshairs: Why It Happens

8 September 2015

Many of you have now heard about the ongoing attacks on the New Israel Fund and our donors by a PR practitioner in New York named Ronn Torossian and by infamous Islamophobe Pamela Geller. A proud spokesperson for the ultranationalist right, Torossian and some co-authors have posted articles attacking NIF and its donors by name for the better part of a year.

As usual with such rants, the relationship with the truth is close to non-existent. No, NIF doesn’t support organizations that boycott Israel. No, our decision that Israeli organizations that boycott settlement products are still eligible for NIF funding is not support for Global BDS, since many Israelis don’t buy products from settlements out of opposition to the settlement enterprise. No, Birthright never refused to partner with NIF. And no, we don’t support (and actually specifically oppose) trying Israeli soldiers in foreign courts. And so on.

But the plain truth doesn’t much matter to the attack dogs of the right, neither Im Tirztu in their infamous campaign that put a horn on Naomi Chazan’s head nor Torossian and company nowadays. So when a new op-ed from him appeared in the Jerusalem Post two weeks ago, I got in touch with their editors and politely reminded them of a promise they made last April, never to run these fallacious articles again.

What then ensued can only be called black comedy. After solemnly reiterating their commitment to never run a Torossian piece again, but refusing to remove the one that was there, the Jerusalem Post gave us right-of-reply. Our op-ed ran, in print and online, and the response we got was extraordinarily positive.

But within a day, after the quickest threat of legal action the Post has probably ever experienced, down the op-ed came. And up went an “apology” to Torossian, mandated by the newspaper’s lawyers. The “apology” claimed, with no evidence, that our op-ed was “slanderous” and “factually inaccurate” and repeated the lie that the New Israel Fund supports a boycott of Israel.

I protested this behavior to the editors. And, the very next day, up went a “clarification” posted by the Jerusalem Post editor, apologizing to the New Israel Fund and stating that our op-ed was neither slanderous nor inaccurate and that we do not, in fact, support a boycott of Israel. Only, within a few hours, to be taken down again on the instructions of the JPost’s lawyers.

The entire mess was covered here by a brave reporter with a brave editor at the LA Jewish Journal, who withstood a weekend’s worth of threats and imprecations from Torossian. This time, his methods didn’t work.

But aside from the recent black comedy, this is not really about the New Israel Fund vs. the guy that Jeffrey Goldberg called “the most disreputable flack in New York, representing the lunatic right-wing fringe.” It’s not even about what can only be described as journalistic buffoonery at the Jerusalem Post.

We at NIF are not the only supporters of Israel’s human and civil rights community, but we are their largest private funder. We – and the Israelis we support – call attention to the dangers posed to Israeli liberal democracy by an ongoing campaign to curtail of freedom of speech and conscience, and the attempts to limit minority rights. We oppose the almost fifty-year-old occupation and the settlement enterprise, and the denial of political rights to millions of Palestinians, and we are blunt about the dire impact this is having on the moral fiber and democratic moorings of Israel itself.

We are visible and our work has an impact. We are the first funder of Israel’s Palestinian-Israeli organizations. We stand by grantees like Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem and Adalah even when we don’t always agree with specific positions or tactics they have chosen, as long as they remain aligned with our principles and funding guidelines. We are now supporting activists on the front line against Israel’s growing escalation of racism, incitement and violence, and we have initiated a bold new program to strengthen and amplify progressive voices in Israel.

I take heart in the knowledge that the smears against NIF have utterly failed. As I wrote in the op-ed that the Jerusalem Post deleted from its website:

No matter how many mysteriously-funded organizations and PR companies come at us, we are growing and succeeding. The New Israel Fund is now active in six countries. We have expanded our program in Israel to build a better infrastructure for the progressive movement and to reach out to new constituencies. The last two years were our best ever for fundraising. Our donors have rallied to us even when they have been called out on fringe websites, and some have even made special gifts in “honor” of Torossian and Geller.

And so I thank you, our supporters, who have discerned that NIF — once a quiet, behind-the-scenes funder — now plays a more visible role in protecting and advancing Israeli democracy. I thank many leaders of the Jewish community in the U.S. and many brave Israelis, across the political spectrum, including right-wingers of conscience like President Rivlin, for standing up for democratic freedoms. I thank the volunteers on our Board, International and Regional Councils and the thousands of front-line activists and the Members of Knesset and everyone else who goes out on a limb in a dangerously polarized atmosphere.

There should be no doubt: we will continue to stand up and speak out for the Israel we can believe in.

Comments

Comments are closed.