Netanyahu Makes False Claim About NIF Funding

27 July 2017

In a bizarre interview with Channel 20, the national religious TV station, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that NIF finances the weekly demonstrations taking place near the home of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit. Although NIF is sympathetic to the demonstrators, who protest Mandelblit’s slow handling of investigations into allegations of corruption by Netanyahu, NIF has not financed the protests.

Netanyahu’s misrepresentation – apparently intended to distract attention from the corruption scandals – gave NIF an opportunity to once again introduce itself to a larger public and to lay out our track record of standing up for the values of equality and democracy.

Even before this gaffe, the efforts by the prime minister and his political allies to score political points at NIF’s expense had provided fodder for prominent satirists.

In fact, Netanyahu’s comments came shortly after Assaf Harel, the Jimmy Fallon of Israel, put out this satirical take on the kind of “trouble” that the New Israel Fund has been up to.