7. (C) New Israel Fund (NIF) Associate Director in Israel Hedva Radovanitz, who manages grants to 350 NGOs totaling about 18 million dollars per year, told PolOff on February 23 that the campaign against the NGOs was due to the "disappearance of the political left wing" in Israel and the lack of domestic constituency for the NGOs. She noted that when she headed ACRI's Tel Aviv office, ACRI had 5,000 members, while today it has less than 800, and it was only able to muster about 5,000 people to its December human rights march by relying on the active staff of the 120 NGOs that participated. Radovanitz commented that the NIF was working behind the scenes through many NGOs to prevent the NGO legislation from passing in its current form. She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.Yeah, no doubt Egypt and the rest of the Muslim world provides an exciting example of the future of democracy in a Muslim-dominated world.
She also said the NIF was currently re-evaluating its strategy and was hoping to create a movement rather than just a lot of NGOs. She said the NIF had no plans to build a human rights constituency within the right wing of Israeli society, though she believed politics had shifted to the right for the foreseeable future.[emphasis added]
And now we can understand the backing of the NIF for the "non-political" protests.
Technorati Tag: Israel.
I love how a hypothetical future Arab majority turning this into an arab state and ruling over the Jews is called "more democratic" but the present situation of a majority of Jews having a Jewish state is somewhere between anti-democratic and a war crime.
ReplyDelete-AbbaGav
(still reading your blog everyday)
I love how a hypothetical future Arab majority turning this into an arab state and ruling over the Jews is called "more democratic"
ReplyDeleteI don't think she is using the word "democratic" to mean anything that has to do with systems of government. Arab rule, whatever form it takes, is "more democratic" to her way of thinking. Great to see you have not totally disappeared from the realm of J-blogs, AbbaGav.
I cam across this blog looking for info on NIF to use at a MASA event they are attending. The event is supposed to be fully pro- Israel so this will be good info to show that NIF it not pro Israel.
ReplyDeleteFor info on NIF, check out NGO Monitor.
ReplyDelete