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February 12, 2010
Uncivil war brews in Israel
Infighting over the Goldstone Report leads to passionate debate.
BENJAMIN JOFFE-WALT THE MEDIA LINE
In the months following the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, governments, civil society groups and human rights organizations issued dozens of reports, some of them well over 100 pages long, on the legality, operation and effects of the war.
Some of the reports accused Israel of war crimes, some accused Israeli soldiers of mistreating prisoners of war and some explored the damage caused to Gaza’s infrastructure during the war. Most, it’s fair to say, were in some way or another scathing indictments of the behavior of the Israeli army.
As the reports piled up, the Israeli government went on offence, contacting European governments to protest their funding of international human rights organizations critical of Israeli actions during the war, questioning the research methodology used by rights organizations and accusing one group of using its criticism of Israel to solicit funding in the Arab world.
Israel threatened to ban foreign funding of Israeli organizations involved in activity deemed political and added to the report pile with its own 164-pager responding to the claims of various rights groups.
But the government’s efforts to stop the tidal wave of international criticism failed, culminating in the publication of Judge Richard Goldstone’s 575-page whopper on the Gaza war to the United Nations Human Rights Council, in which Israel was officially accused of war crimes by an international legal entity.
While the Israeli government has gone to great lengths in the months since the report’s publication to respond to its content, for some in Israel, the damage to the country’s image has already been done.
Politicians began blaming one another for allowing such a public diplomacy train wreck to take place, while others turned to the various Israeli organizations that helped Goldstone, accusing them of using human rights discourse to malign and weaken their own country.
Organizations like UN Watch and NGO Monitor, which keeps tabs on civil society organizations, entered mainstream Israeli political discussion and their leaders began appearing throughout Israeli media.
Israel’s numerous human rights advocacy and research groups soon hit back, accusing such groups of attempting to suppress democratic rights by equating criticism with treason.
The quarrel came to a head recently with the publication of an advertisement in Israel’s leading newspapers accusing Israeli organizations of being the principal suppliers of the critical testimonies contained in the Goldstone Report.
“Without the New Israel Fund [NIF], there would be no Goldstone Report, and Israel would not be facing international accusations of war crimes,” read the advertisement, making reference to a an Israeli philanthropic organization that funds a number of Israeli rights and progressive social change organizations.
The advertisement, put out by Im Tirtzu, a right-wing student group calling for a “Second Zionist Revolution,” depicted NIF president Naomi Chazan, former deputy speaker of the Knesset, with a horn on her head, accusing the organization of being behind “90 percent of the Goldstone war crimes allegations from non-official Israeli sources,” and of giving $8 million “to 16 anti-Zionist Israeli organizations that volunteered to provide Goldstone incriminating ‘information’ on the [Israeli army’s] ‘war crimes.’ ”
“We have a big problem,” Ronen Shoval, Im Tirtzu’s chairman, said. “There are many anti-Zionist groups that advocate against Israel from within Israel.
“These are not human rights organizations, they are pseudo-human rights organizations using the terminology of human rights to create a blood libel upon Israeli soldiers who are defending them.” Shoval, who fought for Israel in the Gaza war, continued, “Was I sent to Gaza in order to defend these organizations’ ability to delegitimize the state of Israel?
“Wars in the Middle East today are not fought on the battlefield and the question is no longer just who has the strongest army,” he said. “The battles are fought in public opinion.
“Goldstone delegitimized the right of Israel to defend itself,” Shoval continued. “In this context we started looking into who was behind [the report]. We found out that out of the Israeli sources in the report, 92 percent of those who accused Israel of war crimes were organizations that get funds from [NIF]. Yet people think they are donating to poor people in Israel. We will show the public the real side of [NIF].”
The advertisement led overseas Jewish groups to cancel appearances by Chazan and a barrage of criticism of NIF and various Israeli rights organizations it supports in Israeli media.
In its defence, NIF has accused Im Tirtzu of disseminating lies about the organizations it funds and threatened to sue Im Tirtzu and the newspapers that published the advertisements for libel.
“The representation of the New Israel Fund and its director, Prof. Naomi Chazan, as enemies of the state and as people who perceive Israel Defence Forces soldiers as criminals has no factual basis and is of unsurpassable gravity,” read an NIF letter threatening legal action.
Mikhael Manekin, director of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group of dissident veterans, argued that the Im Tirtzu advertisement marked a new stage in the political feud over Israeli rights groups.
“Foreign Minister [Avigdor] Lieberman’s attack on Israeli civil society organizations was a bit different than what’s happening now,” he said. “While I forcefully disagree with Lieberman, at least he has a coherent case.
“Now, Im Tirtzu is just angry with a long list of organizations because of their opinions, equating any organization that doesn’t adhere to the government’s cause or direction as traitorous.... That’s fascism plain and simple.
“Regarding the specific accusations, Israeli generals aren’t being accused of war crimes by the United Nations because people are talking about it or because of civil society organizations, they are being accused of war crimes because they allegedly committed war crimes,” he said. “To place the blame for that on the whistle blowers is very problematic.”
Nirit Moscovitz, a spokesperson with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of the organizations supported by NIF and which contributed testimony to the Goldstone Report, said: “Instead of responding directly to the claims of human rights abuses, these organizations and politicians are essentially using the defamation of human and social rights organizations as a means of deflecting criticism of Israel in the Goldstone Report.... This is a joint attack implemented by both senior politicians as well as fragments in civil society such as NGO Monitor, Im Tirtzu. First these organizations publish ads full of lies about Israeli human rights organizations funded by the New Israel Fund, then suddenly a Knesset member says they are going to discuss it in the Knesset security committee.”
Chazan’s former political party, Meretz, described the Im Tirtzu campaign as “ugly” and “hateful” and “a further stage towards limiting public discourse.
“It warns of the McCarthyist slope on which we find ourselves,” read a statement. “These are civil society organizations that stand at the forefront of the struggle for Israel’s democratic image and civic character.”
J Street, a U.S.-based left-of-centre Israel advocacy group self-described as a lobby, described the advertisements as “an outrageous campaign” launched “in a style reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of recent Jewish experience.
“Im Tirtzu’s political leanings are clear,” wrote J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami in a statement. “This is a pro-settler group, with $100,000 of funding from Christians United for Israel [CUFI], a conservative Christian Zionist organization run by Pastor John Hagee, who once stated that God sent Hitler to drive Jews to Israel. Funds collected for Im Tirtzu in the United States are directed through a New York City-based charity which funds construction over the Green Line.”
According to its website, CUFI has donated to many Israeli organizations.
But an Israeli foreign ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, praised groups critical of the Israeli organizations that contributed to the Goldstone Report.
“It’s important to expose these organizations’ resources and interests,” he said.
Uzi Dayan, former head of Israel’s National Security Council and former deputy chief of staff in the Israeli army, said, “It’s much harder and complicated for the Israeli government to launch a direct criticism of a civil society organization.”
But Dr. Elisha Haas, the current chairman of Professors for a Strong Israel, argued that the government should take a more aggressive role in monitoring civil society organizations.
“Israel is a state that is engaged in an active existential war,” he argued. “There are many fronts in this war and one of them is public opinion. These organizations are continuously mobilizing public opinion against Israel and are the source of the information found in the Goldstone Report, so it’s very sad that the government waited for students to expose this reality when they have known it for months.”
Haas rejected the claim that attempts to curb the funding or activities of Israeli rights organizations are undemocratic. “The problem is not human rights, there should be human rights organizations,” he said. “The problem is that human rights language is being used as the cover for a political agenda to weaken Israel.
“Any country that is stable can tolerate organizations that undermine the state,” he continued. “But there is only one state in the whole world that can disappear and that is Israel. So while it may not be convenient to recognize it, we cannot play the same game that everyone else is playing and have to be much more careful about allowing such organizations to undermine the existence of Israel.”
Barak Cohen, of the Israel Democracy Institute, argued that well-hidden under this public spat is a small glimpse of the vibrancy of public discourse in Israel. “Clearly Israelis have not lost their passion for political activism.
“Nonetheless there are many more constructive, less damaging ways to mediate disagreements between family members than airing them on the international stage,” Cohen said. “Israelis – individuals and organizations alike – care deeply for their preferred ‘national course.’ Underlying this conflict are fundamentally different visions of what the state of Israel should look like. These differences are both a source of tension, as well as an inseparable part of the state’s democratic fabric.”
“It seems to me that this type of sparring could take place around divisive issues in any country,” he added. “At the same time, Israelis and Jews worldwide tend towards high levels of emotion and even feelings of personal responsibility when it comes to the state and its policies.”
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