New Israel Fund Received More Than $1 Million From U.S. State Department

[Mosby]

The controversial New Israel Fund and its social change and political lobbying organization known as SHATIL, have received more than $1 million from the State Department under a program designed to create political change, reform, and activism in the Middle East. The government program, Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), has extended more than $600 million in grants to political and social activists and reformers in 18 Middle East countries, mainly with unstable or challenged political environments in need of democratic improvement. “MEPI supports organizations and individuals in their efforts to promote political, economic, and social reform in the Middle East and North Africa,” according to the agency’s official self-description.

The list of nations in which MEPI operates includes such countries as Algeria, Libya, Lebanon, and Yemen.

However, MEPI’s sphere of engagement includes Israel — ironically the only pluralistic, stable, and democratic nation in the Mideast. Among the leading recipients for MEPI grants in Israel is the New Israel Fund and its SHATIL organization. The NIF is an international, US-based 501(c)(3) charitable organization which has generated intense acrimony within the Jewish community and Israeli establishment for its highly politicized activities.

While MEPI’s involvement with the New Israel Fund has been previously reported in print and online, the million-dollar nature of the partnership has not emerged until now.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/09/new-israel-fund-received-more-than-1-million-from-u-s-state-department/

[Scootaloo]

1. Are you a regular reader of the daily Caller, Mosby?

Just out of curiosity.

[Mosby]

2. I don't know anything about the website.

[Scootaloo]

4. Of course you don't.

Funny how often right-wing tabloids get cited here by people who have absolutely zero idea that they are right-wing tabloids. It's a site run by Tucker Carlson, if you're unaware.

Maybe the anti-Democrat linked stories on the right sidebar could have clued you in.

Oh! and here are some of the comments!

Janovus • 6 hours ago
NIF= another term for filthy Kapos.
Sick bunch of traitors to both the jewish people and the state of Israel
Why do Jews constantly create such individuals?
Time to cut out this cancer once and for all

J Simson • 5 hours ago
Judenrats

Thanks for the daily dose of pro-Israel antisemitism, Mosby.

[Mosby]

5. Hmm, kinda hard to tell the far right from the far left when it comes to Hillery hate.

If you know what I mean.

[Scootaloo]

6. Not really, but keep telling yourself that

Maybe someday I'll see someone claim "the far left is the same as the far right!" in an effort to attack the right, rather than the left. hasn't happened yet, and I know you won't be the one to start.

[shaayecanaan]

10. Thats because conservatives don't hate the Right

but "liberals" despise the Left.

[Scootaloo]

11. We make them feel inadequate

It's like cheesey sci-fi movies where, deep down, the killer robots are only jealous that htey don't know what 'love' is

[geek tragedy]

14. then how did you come across this link? nt

[Mosby]

16. facebook.

[Mosby]

3. Husband Of New Israel Fund Director Supports Boycotts Against Israel

-snip-

This weekend, Rachel Liel, Israel director of the NIF was featured in an article in YNET, the online version of Yediot Achronot. Using convenient half-truths, Liel discussed the importance of NIF projects which benefit minorities, benefits ultra-Orthodox women, and other fairly mainstream projects which few Israelis take offense at.

What was conveniently ignored was the fact that a significant portion of NIF’s $30 Million budget is spent on projects which directly harm the State of Israel. The New Israel Fund is a dangerous, radical organization which wraps their programs in a “respectable” package. They are rejected by the majority of Israelis across the political spectrum.

What has not yet been exposed is the fact that Rachel Liel’s husband, Alon is one of the world’s leading organizers of world boycotts against Israel. He is also a co-organizer of the campaign to call on European countries to undermine Israeli sovereignty by “recognizing” the “State of Palestine.” Alon Liel, Israel’s former ambassador to South Africa is a member of two organizations which receive large funding by NIF. He is on the management team of Ir Amin, which works against Jewish interests in Jerusalem, and is also a member of the B’Tselem Public Council.

Alon Liel supports a cultural boycott of Israel, having supported author Alice Walker’s Anti-Semitic refusal to allow a Hebrew translation of her bestseller “The Color Purple.” He works extensively worldwide on PR campaigns which harm Israel, working to generate headlines which read “Boycott My Country.”

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/exclusive-expose-husband-of-new-israel-fund-director-supports-boycotts-against-israel/2015/03/09/

[azurnoir]

8. OMG can you believe this guy? he's called Jonathon Pollard a traitor and is a member of B'Tselem

What has not yet been exposed is the fact that Rachel Liel’s husband, Alon is one of the world’s leading organizers of world boycotts against Israel. He is also a co-organizer of the campaign to call on European countries to undermine Israeli sovereignty by “recognizing” the “State of Palestine.” Alon Liel, Israel’s former ambassador to South Africa is a member of two organizations which receive large funding by NIF. He is on the management team of Ir Amin, which works against Jewish interests in Jerusalem, and is also a member of the B’Tselem Public Council.


He holds radical viewpoints which the majority of Israelis, even on the left oppose, from calling on High School trips to the Golan to be cancelled as they are “a provocation to peace”, to claiming that the boycott is a “more pressing issue than the Iran issue.” The man has endorsed an academic boycott against Israeli academic institutions, and has called Jonathan Pollard a traitor.

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/exclusive-expose-husband-of-new-israel-fund-director-supports-boycotts-against-israel/2015/03/09/

[Israeli]

9. He is one of the most ...

...respectable faces within the Israeli Left azurnoir.

One of The Elders, a group of former statesmen (and women) working to advance human rights, justice and peace.

ref : http://theelders.org/find?keys=Alon+Liel&op=Search&form_build_id=form-qkclr_0h2TbPgcfggNOJCSdIPeAmJXtT_gL_TYoiUzE&form_id=theelders_site_globalsearch_form

He is an outspoken critic of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.

see :

&t=86


" He holds radical viewpoints which the majority of Israelis, even on the left oppose "

Yeah right
If they think he is a radical then honestly they have no idea .

LOL ...." and has called Jonathan Pollard a traitor " .....so what ?
He betrayed his country ...makes him a traitor does it not ?

[Scootaloo]

12. Convicted of treason, no less

I mean, hard to find a clearer example of a traitor than someone who committed and was convicted for treason.

[eyl]

13. He was convicted

For espionage, not treason (per Wikipedia, there were no indictments for treaon in the US between 1952-2006)

[Israeli]

18. " For espionage, not treason " ....

.....whatever eyl.
He betrayed his country , period .

Our Right wing think he is some kind of hero .

Alon Liel is slandered by the same people that hero worship Jonathan Pollard.

Go figure .

Dual loyalties anyone ??

[King_David]

19. Maybe you don't understand Golah Jews but the Dual Loyalties

Canard is classic antisemitism ... Classic ... Not even a debatable point.

If someone accused a Jew of that here on DU it would be expected their PPR.

[Israeli]

20. KD ..

It is so simple ....either Jonathan Pollard is a loyal American or a loyal Jew .
Which is it in your humble opinion ?
Cant be both .

Given a choice which would you betray ?
Your country or your religion ?

Its not " classic antisemitism " ....its classic division of loyalties .

He chose to betray his country therefore he is a traitor .

[King_David]

21. Any kind of Dual Loyalty talk is classic Antisemitism

This is not debatable.

[Israeli]

26. Thats a good excuse ...

...and if we choose to debate it we are therefore antisemetic ??

Its getting so old and so tired KD .

[King_David]

27. I'm surprised as an Israeli Jew you don't know this

Or maybe there's a reason you don't know these things?

[King_David]

22. Funny someone calling themselves Jewish and israeli doesn't

Understand that "Dual Loyalties " canard is the most Classic of Antisemitism a person could get.

Dual loyalty had been the linchpin of anti-Semitism, long before the creation of Israel.

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/17795/little-black-cloud-of-dual-loyalty-masks-anti-semitism/





Disgusting!!!!

[King_David]

17. As Eyl corrected you

You can't make up your own facts . Yesterday you claimed 20% of the population was Gay.
You think nobody will call you on it ?

[Scootaloo]

23. Well, it's my mistake on Pollard

However, for the % of the population, I was going with what the National Bureau of Economic Research's well... research. they were wrong, evidently. I'm still curious about where the disparity in the two figures comes from. The Smithsonian supposes it's due to different methodologies in the surveys resulting in more honesty for the NBER's results.

I find it fascinating that you read it as an attack when it's offered that the GLBT population might be larger than you thought.

[King_David]

24. A lot of extremists right wingers don't believe the Gay community be protected as a minority group.

Hence numbers are very important.

Census figures eventually will be the most accurate.

[Scootaloo]

25. Which is strange...

Because when I do a google search for "what percent of the population is gay" two results - Breitbart and Rush Limbaugh's site - celebrate the CDC numbers. I won't link them because, obviously. But if you're curious you can have a look for yourself on google. Apparently they think this number justifies their hatred, claiming "undue influence" or whatever.

20% is still a minority.

[Israeli]

7. NIF launches $2m campaign to promote democracy in Israel

Shift in funding strategy is meant to push back against right wing extremism in Israel.

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen

NEW YORK – At a time when right-wing extremism appears to be getting increasingly entrenched in Israeli discourse and law, the New Israel Fund is kicking off a $2 million initiative to amplify democratic voices and values in the Jewish state.

NIF is reallocating 20 percent of its budget to the program, called New Initiativesfor Democracy, or NIF-D, to provide operating support to Israeli organizations, including think tanks Molad and the Council for Peace and Security. Its board has also just elected Israeli attorney Talia Sasson to be NIF’s next president. Sasson is best known for the 2005 Sasson Report, commissioned by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which detailed the diversion of government funds into illegal settlements and outposts in the occupied territories.

The NIF’s goal is to assemble “a progressive infrastructure to put forward a new vision and push back” against anti-democratic efforts in Israel, said the group’s CEO, Daniel Sokatch, in an interview. It is also to broaden the camp involved in such efforts. “These are new constituency-building efforts in communities that we know share significant values and have common interests, but don’t see themselves as part of that movement. An Israel that is open, that is egalitarian, that is pluralistic – we think there’s a big base for that in Israel,” he told Haaretz.

Naomi Paiss, NIF’s spokeswoman, said the constituents they hope to bring together to work toward these goals might come from the traditional Mizrahi community and, in some cases, Orthodox feminist groups, people who may share the same concerns but don’t self-identify as progressive.

“We see an Israel that is a Jewish homeland and equal democratic society which is now threatened by significant forces that would like to make democratic secondary to Jewish,” Sokatch said. He cited current bills in the Knesset that would drop Arabic as an official language of Israel, and some, already passed, which would cut off government funding to any Arab municipality commemorating Israel’s Independence Day as the Palestinian nakba, or catastrophe, and which state that settlers can sue any Israeli who calls for a boycott of goods from the West Bank. “I have faith that the Israeli High Court is going to overturn these things, but right now that’s the law of the land,” Sokatch said.

Ken Stern, a New York-based expert on extremism and anti-Semitism who has taught at Bard College, said in an interview that in Israel “there seems to be a growing trend that views alternative viewpoints not seen as fully supportive of the state as beyond the pale, and that’s a great challenge to democracy. One of the things always remarkable about Israel is that it has had the room for people to dissent without fear of punishment. That capacity seems to be decreasing in recent years, and that’s troubling.”

NIF has allocated $300,000 to Molad and $200,000 to the Council for Peace and Security. Molad and Mitvim, which is getting $25,000 in funding, will work on “articulating progressive vision and policy,” according to the U.S. group. Other recipients include Kiach, which is getting $100,000 to expand the discussion of democratic values in Mizrahi communities; Shaharit, getting $150,000 to grow Israel’s pro-democracy movement, and NIF’s operating arm in Israel, Shatil, which is reallocating some of its $3 million budget to promote local progressive leadership development, NIF said. The organization is still looking for local partners with which it can work on media monitoring and online engagement, much the way MoveOn.org does in the U.S.

In a statement announcing the new project Sokatch said, “The institutions of the right, from think-tanks to the various ‘watch’ and ‘monitoring’ organizations, act together to put forward a vision of Israel that is ethnocentric, intolerant, and prepared for perpetual conflict. We know how building a progressive infrastructure in the US and elsewhere has changed the power dynamic. The only way to advance a competing vision in Israel is to build the progressive institutions needed to sustain it.”

While NIF’s focus on civil society and human rights has not changed, its funding strategy is, as it moves away from project support to making larger donations for organizational support. “It is a different strategy, because we are looking for partners that can have a national impact and both empower existing progressives and build bridges to organizations that are not progressive, but share some of our values,” Paiss said in an interview.

While NIF says it will continue support it provides to groups where it is the primary funder, in its announcement Sokatch essentially admits that the work NIF has been doing in Israel since the American group was established in 1979, around everything from women’s rights to Arab-Jewish co-existence, just isn’t enough. It “is no longer sufficient to meet the challenges presented by the changing landscape in Israel,” Sokatch said in the announcement. “We must do more to support those Israelis working to ensure that their country lives up to its founders’ vision.”

Though NIF has been developing its new plan for the past year and a half, the conflict in Gaza this summer made the need acute, NIF officials told Haaretz.

“The trends we’ve been warning about for five years have accelerated. This war exacerbated them and made them more visible,” Paiss told Haaretz. “The shaping of the discourse in Israel has become incredibly one-sided. You can say ‘everybody’s moved to the right,’ but that’s the only narrative they’re hearing.”

Behind the scenes are “lots of interlocking directorates involved in this stuff,” Sokatch said, pointing to American Jewish mega-funders who are among the Israeli right wing’s biggest benefactors.

Sheldon Adelson may be the best known. Along with serving as one of the biggest backers of the U.S. Republican party and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Adelson underwrites the daily newspaper Israel Hayom with $20 million annually, according to a 2012 article in The Economist.

Other significant funders include the Central Fund of Israel, which is run by the Marcus family and spent more than $16 million in 2012, according to its 2013 U.S. tax filing. While the fund’s money went to projects blandly described in the tax paperwork as “general educational support,” “legal aid” and “community projects” in the Middle East, it was described by The New York Times as “a prominent clearinghouse” for funding West Bank projects. “Dozens of West Bank groups seem to view the fund as little more than a vehicle for channeling donations back to themselves, instructing their supporters that if they want a tax break, they must direct their contributions there first,” according to that New York Times article.

The NIF, which raised $29.5 million in 2012, according to its own U.S. tax filing, isn’t all that much bigger, in dollar terms, than the Central Fund.

NIF’s Paiss said that even relatively small amounts can have a large impact on Israeli organizations, whose budgets are sometimes miniscule compared to American groups. “In some cases even $5,000 makes a huge difference in what they’re able to do,” Paiss told Haaretz.

Each time Sokatch speaks to a group he is asked where the left’s Sheldon Adelson is, he told Haaretz. “’You are the Sheldon Adelson on our side,’ I say” to the group. “Liberals almost constitutionally have concerns that transcend single issues. George Soros and Steven Spielberg don’t focus all their energy on Israel. It’s much easier on the other side of the aisle, where there is a different sense of passion and commitment among donors. You’ve got to admire them for that. This is Adelson’s first priority and he puts his money where his mouth is. All of us on the liberal side tend to be much more universalist. It’s much harder to find that one person who says ‘this is the one thing I care about.’ So we rely on the aggregate.”

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who in his 16 years as president of the Union for Reform Judaism learned a few things about fundraising, questioned NIF’s timing, saying that it is “very difficult” to raise money for the cause of democracy right now.

“So close to the war in Gaza, it’s going to be difficult. The democracy issues were much more at the center of people’s attention before than they are now. Those issues were at the heart of the last election but now are pretty much gone,” said Yoffie, who since 2012 has been the URJ’s president emeritus and contributes opinion articles to Haaretz. “It’s a very hard time to start a new fundraising campaign that’s going to revolve around those kinds of concerns.”

It is particularly difficult to raise money for Israel from liberal American Jews, Sokatch acknowledged. “In the Jewish world, the conservative side, especially the hard-line conservative side, is much more willing to influence events on the ground in Israel than are liberal Jews, who need convincing about even why they should connect and commit.”

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.616380

[azurnoir]

15. more anti-New Israel Fund activety and from a vile source too

On Sunday, I wrote, “It’s time to out the Jews who fund BDS.” And so now that is exactly what my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), is setting out to do.

We have begun a new nationwide ad campaign to expose Jewish groups and leaders who are funding Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns. It is unbelievable but true: Jews in key leadership positions in American Jewish institutions are funding and supporting the most vicious Jew-hatred campaigns; BDS (the 21st-century version of Kristallnacht) is just one of them. Our AFDI ad campaign is intended to bring public awareness to their activities and ultimately move them to stop harming the Jewish State of Israel.

The initial five ads target some of the principal Jewish organizations and philanthropists that are aiding the enemies of Israel, noting that they fund “New Israel Fund’s (BDS) Boycott, Divestment and Sanction. Stop the Jewish Destruction of Israel.” The individual ads name as BDS funders the UJA, its President Alisa Doctoroff, Carole and Saul Zabar, the Bronfman Foundation, and Edith Everett.
One ad from the AFDI campaign.



http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/