The power of example—the NIF, the attacks, and Goldstone
One way to figure the increasingly fraught to and fro between the New Israel Fund and its Israeli critics (including the Israeli government) is as a family fight: Not exactly articulate, at first.For the past few days, ever since it's become evident that the army is using some of the same NIF-funded evidence to examine itself as the Goldstone commission, I've been wondering why exactly -- at the same time -- NIF's critics have intensified their attacks. The criticism, aired over the summer, that the evidence is tendentious now, itself, appears to be tendentious.
What's emerging -- and may yet be articulated (or maybe has been articulated, I have yet to see it clearly) -- is not that the evidence is bad, or manufactured, but that it was wrong to share it with Goldstone. Period.
That posture may be grossly simplistic -- nativist, even -- but I think the psychology that underpins it stems from legitimate Israeli concerns about legitimating Goldstone -- and it's here that NIF falls short in shaping the argument.
Otniel Schneller, a Kadima lawmaker in the Knesset and one of several Knesset members seeking the criminalization of some of the activity of the human rights groups at the center of this, seems to hint at this psychology Thursday in The Jerusalem Post:
Schneller added that he felt at least one of the groups connected to the NIF, which had given testimony to Goldstone’s commission of inquiry, had overstepped the bounds of legitimacy in that it had already tried to bring the same issue -- regarding IDF actions in Gaza -- to the Israeli Supreme Court, which rejected the case.
“They attempted to bring a case alleging that the IDF had destroyed entire villages in Gaza,” Schneller said. “The Supreme Court threw it out and dismissed it as false, but the group nonetheless presented the issue to Goldstone. That’s a prime example of an illegitimate activity, because it’s not only faulting the IDF based on false testimony, but it’s saying that decisions made by the courts of the State of Israel are not binding.”
Let me be crystal clear: I'm not endorsing Schneller's view, or even saying it makes sense. He doesn't bother to identify the group or the case, rendering his claim a centimeter or two short of nonsense; recourse to an international body is, a priori, out of bounds, according to his outlook, although he doesn't explain why Israel is happy, for instance, to use the World Trade Organization's good offices to bludgeon Arab states into allowing trade.
Where this argument may be going, where it may finally grasp legitimacy, is in his "nonetheless": "Goldstone" has become a byword, in Israel, for "travesty," and not without reason. The report includes some substantive charges, but makes its overall case -- that Israel's policy was to intentionally target civilians -- on flimsy grounds, including meaningless bluster from Israeli officials who were not involved in the war's planning, and the bizarre claim that because of Israel's development of precision weaponry, human error cannot be a factor. This, as I've written, is like blaming Canon for Uncle Marv's tendency to point the PowerShot at Aunt Edna's ear instead of her face. The camera may be state of the art, but Uncle Marv, unfortunately, is still an idiot.
And this report underpins a process that Israelis have every reason to suspect is corrupt. Had the U.N. Human Rights Council, make no mistake, received from Richard Goldstone a paper plate illiustrated with his absent doodling, it would have used it to launch a bid to refer Israeli officials to the International Criminal Court. That such a referral now has the patina of legitimacy because of Goldstone's authentic background as a jurist, a human rights icon and a Zionist makes it worse, for Israelis.
And the fact that he has marshaled facts, and from Israeli sources, makes it even worse, which is where this becomes vexing. This fury, at the subliminal level where it now brews, needs little justification; B'tselem's facts seem as outrageous to Israelis like Schneller, as Goldstone's distortions of the same facts.
It is the responsbility, of course, of the Israelis acting on this fury to responsibly tease apart the malicious from the meticulous, and so far, they've done a really horrible job of it: Legislation that would shut down NGOs would probably cause as many problems as it would solve, if for no other reason than it would provide a pretext to shut down NGOs watching out for the welfare of Jews in the Ukraine and other states of the former Soviet Union and would lend credibility to the smearing of human rights groups providing valuable information in the immediate neighborhood. Do we need an "even Israel does it" moment?
But this need for clarity is also the responsibility of the human rights groups exploited by Goldstone -- and their sponsors, like the NIF. Not because of some McCarthyist notion by which every critic must first swear fealty to a politically correct notion of what it means to be Israeli. Not because the NIF and the groups it sponsors have been named by the likes of Im Tirtzu, but because they have been named by Goldstone.
Let me get a little Dickensian here, and risk casting Israel as Oliver Twist: You catch the kid picking your pocket, you turn him over to the constabulary. When you discover that he faces the gallows, is it your responsibility to do your damndest to get him out?
Ok, Cast Lead was no pocket-picking expedition, but the UNHRC -- and to a degree, the international court -- is about as corrupt as the interest-vested England of Dickens' day.
And the thing is, once the responsible organization makes it clear that it has repudiated Goldstone, a weight, at least, is partly lifted. B'Tselem, for instance, made it clear in October that it found Goldstone's report profoundly* flawed; is it a coincidence that Israel's government cited B'Tselem as a source in explaining its efforts to track down wrongdoing last week? Not that B'Tselem is satisfied -- but it has scored an irrevocable victory. The army has validated its research.
The same is true this side of the pond. Yuli Edelstein, the Israeli Diaspora affairs minister, who's here meeting with Jewish leaders this week as I noted earlier, lists the usual litany of wounded broadsides against the New Israel Fund:
This matter has come to a head through a body called the New Israel Fund, and this body, as I have said and we all know, has a number of projects that are very beautiful, very welcome in the social sector, and I as a former minister of absorption can testify ran very desirable activities in various areas. But alongside these ran activities I would say are very problematic, some of the funding is not private, … funded by all sorts of foreign agents, foreign governments, but certainly, and I haven't checked 100 percent the reliability of the research, but as far as I know, and the study is in my room, but as far as I know, most of the material submitted to Goldstone report was submitted by groups funded by NIF.
Nowhere in this rambling, barely grammatical (in its original Hebrew) declamation does Edelstein address whether the materials submitted to Goldstone are truthful, which you'd think would be the point.
NIF's director, Daniel Sokatch, understandably slid into the "kill the messenger" cliche when I read back Edelstein's remarks. "We've made an enormous difference to the texture and character of civil society over last 30 years," he said. "Human rights groups are reporting what they see in the field and absolutely have a duty to validate the reports -- to take it out on the organizations, and and particularly the New Israel Fund seems to me an attempt to kill the messenger."
He would not, however, pronounce an opinion on the Goldstone report: "We don't take positions on political issues," he said. But that's exactly what NIF does, and with good reason. (Nothing in Israel is more political than the hegemony of the Orthodox, for instance.)
Contrast this with Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Reform movement's Religious Action Center, who was even more robust in his condemnation of the anti-NIF campaign -- and who even reached out to me to vent spleen.
"It's ironic that people who condemned the Goldstone report as sweeping generalities, taking facts out of context, are getting on the bandwagon of a report that does the same thing here," he said, referring to Im Tirtzu's "study" of the NIF.
Saperstein has the credibility to point out that irony because his organization was among those that "condemned the Goldstone report as sweeping generalities."
Saperstein made it clear that he believed whether NIF or the groups it sponsors have condemned Goldstone or not, was beside the point. "I don't see how they can be blamed for the Goldstone report because they provided information they knew to be factual -- their assertions ought to be evaluated on their own merits," Saperstein said. And he and Sokatch made the valid point that had the groups not cooperated with Goldstone, their material is, by definition, open source, and would have been available to Goldstone for quotation (or misquotation).
All true -- but it was Saperstein, whose movement has made its rejection of the Goldstone report clear, who scored the one-on-one meeting with Edelstein, who now says he will return to Israel to report to the Cabinet an impending crisis in relations with the Diaspora. Not Sokatch, nor his boss, Naomi Chazan.
Saperstein would not share with me his discussion with Edelstein, but I know David, and he is nothing if not blunt spoken.
UPDATE: Jerry Haber (below) does not agree that B'Tselem's characterization of the Goldstone report is "profoundly flawed," as I do. I think the flaws that B'Tselem describes are profound -- particularly, this sentence: "The mission’s conclusions regarding Israel’s overall objectives in carrying out the operation were not sufficiently supported by facts arising from the mission’s research."
But it is also true that B'Tselem does not necessarily see things my way; as Jerry points out, B'Tselem also finds that the "faults do not nullify the report’s main recommendation, that Israel must investigate the suspicions that its army acted in Gaza unlawfully and immorally." So I have crossed out "profoundly." B'Tselem found the report flawed, and one of the flaws B'Tselem finds is that Goldstone leaped to conclusions about intent unsupported by the evidence -- the very flaw I believe points to a profound corruption at the Goldstone commission's core. That's how I should have put it.
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the emergence of a the human rights NGO’s—and more generally, the discourse of human rights—as a third force in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist nor non-Zionist; they are pro-human rights.
That’s called the big lie. The Nazi’s were masters at it. So was Arafat. And so is Haber
All right, Bill, if it is a lie, and a big one at that, then I have a challenge for you. Go to their websites and post where they have anything to say about opposition to Zionism.
Then go to real anti-Zionist websites and compare what you find.
Even Zokhrot —which is not a human rights organization —takes no stand whatever on Zionism or the State of Israel. It calls for implementing the right of return but doesn’t accept the extraordinarily dumb claim that says that this would spell the end of the Jewish State.
That claim, my friend, is the Big Lie.
Ok, Haber, I’ll bite. Explain to me how implementing the “right of return” would not spell the end of israel has a Jewish state. It’s not often I read something so completely idiotic but please enlighten me. ( no sarcasm )
The following three critiques of the NIF posted at Israel Resource Review, http://www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com, deal with the issues at hand:
Please peruse and consider the content of these pieces
Brachot Rabot
David Bedein
=========================
On Free Speech and Informed Public Debate: An Open Letter to NIF and Affiliated NGOs
By: Professor Gerald Steinberg and the NGO Monitor staff
NGO Monitor To ACRI, Bimkom, B’Tselem, Gisha, PCATI, Yesh Din, HaMoked, PHR-I, Rabbis for Human Rights, and New Israel Fund (NIF): The recent attacks directed against NGO Monitor’s detailed research represent a dangerous attempt to prevent free speech and informed public debate on the political role of some NGOs. In particular, in your February 1, 2010 , you tendentiously referred to NGO Monitor as an “extreme group” ...
INVESTIGATION OF THE NEW ISRAEL FUND
By: Ben Caspit
Meet Ron Shuval. He is 29, married plus two, lives in Ramat Hasharon, secular, served in the Armored Corps, works in high-tech. He has a BA in international relations and philosophy, an MA in Jewish thought from Hebrew University. He is also the chairman and founder of Im Tirtzu which defines itself as a “centrist extra-parliamentary movement that strives to strengthen the values of Zionism in Israel and to renew and reinstate Zionist discourse, thinking and ideology…
FOUL PLAY AT THE NEW ISRAEL FUND
By: Ben Dror Yemini
The New Israel Fund is angry. It thinks that it is correct to disseminate false testimony about the State of Israel. It thinks that it is okay to take part in the demonization campaign that is being staged by organizations whose goal is the elimination of Israel. It thinks that it is okay to cooperate with the Goldstone commission, even though it was formed by an automatic majority of the benighted countries that control the UN Human Rights Council. ..
Bill,
The claim that interests me here is Ben Dror Yemini’s claim that Zokhrot, by insisting on the right of return, in effect wishes to do away with the Jewish state.
Yemini could have saved himself some trouble (if he wanted to be intellectually honest, at least) by reading Zokhrot’s website, which has a question in its F.A Q. and answer as follows:
האם זכות השיבה איננה בעצם שם קוד לחיסול מדינת ישראל?
זכות השיבה היא זכות-אדם בסיסית, שאינה אמורה להיות מותנית בפיתרון מדיני זה או אחר. אין ספק שעם יישום השיבה, בין אם במסגרת של 2 מדינות או של מדינה אחת, ישראל תשנה את אופייה. אופי השינוי והיקפו תלויים, בין השאר, בהסכמות שיגיעו אליהן הצדדים במשא ומתן. ‘זוכרות’ מאמינה שהשינוי הזה טומן בחובו סיכוי גדול לריפוי הפצע העמוק בין ישראלים לפלסטינים, ולראשונה להשתלבות אמיתית של הישראלים במזרח התיכון.
My quick translation:
Questions: Isn’t the Right of Return a code word for the elimination of the State of Israel?
Answer: The right of return is a fundamental human right which is not conditional upon this or that political solution Certainly if the right of return were implemented, whether in the framework of a two-states or one state, there would be a change in the character of the State of Israel. The nature and extent of that change will depend, inter alia, on an agreement arrived at in negotiations between the two parties. Zokhrot believes that this change contains within it a great opportunity of healing the deep wound between Israelis and Palestinians, and, for the first time, the true integration of the Israelis within the Middle East”
What, I think, Zokhrot is driving at, is the transformation of Israel from an ethnocracy with some democratic institutions to a liberal democracy of all its citizens, in which the Jewish and Palestinian culture would play predominant roles.
Now the transformation of Israel to a liberal democracy with Jewish heritage, culture, and calendar in public sphere may be what Ben Dror Yemini calls “the elimination of Israel.” But as Bernie Avishai argues in the Hebrew Republic, such a country would be very similar to what Israel looks like today: Hebrew culture, Hebrew calendar, Jewish history taught in schools, etc.
Now, after all this, you can say, “this is naive bullshit”. But if you do, then you be in fundamental disagreement with Ben Dror Yemini. Because he doesn’t claim that Zokhrot naively and wrongly thinks that Israel can survive the recognition and implementation (in negotiations) of the right of return. He says that they agitate against the existence of the state of Israel. That is because Yamini, a tribalist, cannot understand the idea that humans have inalienable rights that trump the concerns of states. What concerns Zokhrt is the human rights of the people who were barred from returning to their homes not because they because they were a security threat, but because of their ethnicity.
.
Ron, I just saw you left a comment on my blog. Thanks for the change. I realize we are still probably in disagreement on one or two things.
One reason for my writing so much about the Goldstone report lately is that Goldstone-bashing has become the favorite sport in the Jewish world. For me, Judge Goldstone is a profile in personal courage, and, yes, a Jewish model to emulate. Here is a man with great personal integrity, love of Israel and passionate commitment to human rights, who has become the number one enemy of the Jewish people after Ahmadinejad—and for what? For criticizing the IDF’s conduct of the war in Gaza? Ribono shel olam, he is not even an anti-Zionist (not that there is anything wrong with that!) Even if he is wrong, is there any indication that he acted from malice? Ah, but he will have given ammunition to the anti-Semites, some will say. To which I reply, not a fraction of what the IDF’s behavior has given. When asked how would he feel if Israel could successfully refute the accusations, Judge Goldstone has said, repeatedly, that this would make him very happy.
Is it too much to expect that some prominent Jewish liberals will stick up for him the way they have stuck up for the New Israel Fund, which supports the groups from which he culled much of his data? Granted, the right will bash them all, fine and dandy. But why should the Goldstone supporters be coming only from the usual suspects of the far left (I mean supporters of the Judge, not the report.) Is it because he is too much the outsider, somebody who doesn’t have the extensive Israeli track record, family and political connections, that Naomi Chazan has?
There is no way to intellectualize ZOCHROT.
We have taken ZOCHROT hosted tours with Palestinians who come to see “their” land.
The Palestinians who come on these ZOCHROT trips are quite serious about taking legal and, if necessary, violent action to take control of these areas.
The “right of return” has been the slogan and watchword of the nascent Palestinian Authority since its inception in 1994
An entire new generation of Palestinians have been educated to believe that they can claim the land of the “illegal” settlements which were established between 1948 and 1967 on the grounds of 531 Arab villages that were lost in the 1948 war and its aftermath.
This is the theme of the new PA school books and curriculum.
In 2000, we conducted a taped interview with Daoud Barakat, head of the PLO Right of Return committee.
We asked him why the PLO wanted to organize tours of the areas that they left in 1948.
His answer was that “these are our homes”.
Well, we said, “there are people who live there”.
Barakat’s response was that “they will have to leave”. And if they don’t leave, we asked him? His answer, without batting an eyelash, was that “we will then have to kill them and international law will be on our side”.
The consquences of Zochrot are dire.
And if you do not think that the Palestinians are serious,do what we have done and spend a few minutes in any UNRWA camp where people live according to the precise neighborhoods and villages that their grandparents left in 1948 and where they are motivated to do anything to “return” there.
Our studies on UNRWA appear under :"special reports” at
http://www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com
Full text of IM TIRTZU study:
“The New Israel Fund Organizations Influence on the GoldstoneCommission” can be read and perused at:
http://israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/NIFGoldstone.pdf
Meanwhle, Israel Resource Review: Issue of February 08, 2010 can be viewed at:
http://israelbehindthenews.com/bin/review.cgi
The Fatah Charter: Intentions vs. Words
By: Arlene Kushner
On January 27, 2010, the Jewish Telegraph Agency put out a news story which indicated that a new Fatah charter, which had emerged from the Fatah Conference held in Bethlehem in August 2009, omitted a previous call for Israel’s destruction. Wrote JTA: “US Jewish groups...have long called…
Palestine’s ‘economic miracle’ : Immense amount of international donations inflate Palestinians’ disposable income
By: Avi Trengo, Economics Correspondent
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been crowned as “the Palestinian Ben-Gurion at the recent Herzliya Conference. However, there is a great gap between the achievements attributed to him and his abilities in practice. Fayyad is credited with changing the corrupt PA apparatus, but even in the financial realm where his expertise lies, his abilities are mostly manifested through the drafting of impressive documents as well as fundraising. Meanwhile, the absurdity inherent…
Hamas faces fiscal crisis due to tight restrictions and blockade: sources
By: Emad Drimly, Saud Abu Ramadan
The deposed government of the Palestinian Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the impoverished enclave of the Gaza Strip, faces a severe fiscal crisis due to the lack of financial liquidity and the tight restrictions of the Israeli blockade, sources close to Hamas said on Sunday. The sources, which spoke on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that Hamas government is facing difficulties in bringing money into the blockaded enclave, which resulted in the lack of financial liquidity,…
Analysis: How Hamas Has Responded to Goldstone’s charges
By: Jonathan Dahohah Halevi
Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi is a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is a co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd. and is a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. has recently delivered to the United Nations Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon its to the UN’s fact finding mission to Operation Cast Lead, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone. Hamas’ government…
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Jeremiah Haber
02/07/10 05:03 AM
Ron, I won’t argue about you over Saperstein. But you are way off the mark with regards to B’Tselem. Nowhere has B’Tselem criticized the Goldstone Report as “deeply flawed”, at least not in the link you provided, nor in what I read. It criticized two conclusions but endorses its recommendation and supports many of its findings.
Here is what B’Tselem wrote.
The Goldstone mission held that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. The report demands that each side initiate criminal investigations into the suspicions and prosecute the persons responsible for these war crimes.
Israel’s response was to immediately condemn the report as erroneous, tendentious, and biased. B’Tselem rejected these claims, and stated in many forums that the report was the result of a serious, professional investigation, reflecting a deep and genuine commitment to ensure that justice is done.
B’Tselem indeed criticized some of the report’s findings. Among other things, B’Tselem argued that the criticism of the way that Hamas members chose to fight did not reflect the severity of their acts, and that in some of the cases the threshold of proof demanded by the mission for determining that Hamas violated international humanitarian law was a higher threshold than that applied to Israel. Also, the mission’s conclusions regarding Israel’s overall objectives in carrying out the operation were not sufficiently supported by facts arising from the mission’s research. However, B’Tselem declared that these faults do not nullify the report’s main recommendation, that Israel must investigate the suspicions that its army acted in Gaza unlawfully and immorally. The suspicions go beyond the acts of individual soldiers, and center on questions of policy relating to rules of engagement, selection of targets for bombing, and the degree to which civilians were protected, among other issues.
At the last meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, Israel and the United States argued, each for its own reasons, that the peace process is not consistent with an international investigation of the suspicion of war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead, and that the diplomatic process should take precedence. B’Tselem does not accept this argument, and believes that neither a peace process nor any other reason eliminates the moral and legal obligation to do justice and ensure accountability for infringement of human rights.
During and after the fighting in the Gaza Strip, B’Tselem documented and brought to the attention of Israelis and the world at large many cases that raised suspicions that the army breached international humanitarian law, and in some cases even its own orders. B’Tselem sent more than twenty cases to the Attorney General and the military prosecutor with a demand to investigate the actions of soldiers in the field and the responsibility of the command echelon. To date, B’Tselem knows of only three of said cases in which witnesses were interviewed.
B’Tselem provided assistance to the investigative staff of the Goldstone mission from the beginning to the end of its research. Since the report was published, B’Tselem has advocated in Israel and abroad to promote an independent and effective investigation of Israel’s actions during the operation. The organization will continue these efforts.
End of quote.
Let’s face it; there is no way that the Israel can seriously go after the NIF, and the NIF will only reap benefit from the publicity. So there is no need to toe the line and repudiate Goldstone in order to have influence on the Israeli government, because you don’t need influence here.
The human rights NGOs will continue to divide their labor; they are all in constant contact with each other, and there are no major divisions. If B’Tselem wants to be the “prettier face” of the Israeli NGO’s, that’s fine, but that wont help them in the eyes of those who think they are collaborating with the enemy. And they work closely with the others.
The big story here that so many of the journalists covering Israel are missing is the emergence of a the human rights NGO’s—and more generally, the discourse of human rights—as a third force in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist nor non-Zionist; they are pro-human rights. And while the right wing (correctly) perceives the danger of this third force, those commentators who are schooled in the status (such as yourself) don’t really get it.