I’ve failed to cover an important new battle inside the pro-Israel lobby, the battle over the New Israel Fund’s support for Breaking the Silence.
New Israel Fund is dedicated to promoting democracy in Israel for its Jewish and Palestinian citizens. It is a progressive Zionist group. It knows that Israel is in crisis, and it is trying to redeem the idealism of the Jewish state. It tends to ignore the Occupied Territories, but it has taken some brave stances: against the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, and giving money to Breaking the Silence, the heroic soldiers’ group whose testimonies played such a crucial role in the Goldstone Report.
Because of the support for Breaking the Silence, NIF has come under harsh attack by the right wing in Israel. One group has smeared Naomi Chazan, the head of NIF, showing her wearing a horn, which I gather calls on old anti-Semitic tropes.
Last night J Street hit back. The progressive Zionist organization sent out an email blast that said there’s a crisis in Israeli democracy. The email, by Isaac Luria, the group’s communications director, is stronger than the version of the letter on J Street’s site, (he talks about East Jerusalem, J Street’s official version doesn’t) but big deal. It’s a very good letter. I publish it below.
And I applaud what J Street is doing. It has opened up an important divide within a very parochial community. Whether such revisionist parochialism is effective is another question (whether it has any effect on apartheid and denial of rights for millions of Palestinians, I doubt it; but I’ll put that aside, for now).
Here’s Luria’s email (footnotes bracketed):
Israel’s democracy and those who defend its commitment to basic civil rights are under attack – and we need to fight back right now.
Growing crackdowns by Israeli authorities in Jerusalem against peaceful political activists. [1]
Leading Israeli feminists threatened with charges for the "crime" of holding a prayer service at the Western Wall. [2]
Swiftboat style ads, funded by extremist groups based in the States and reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of Jewish history, attacking pro-civil rights, pro-human rights, pro-democracy activists in Israeli papers. [3]
Alan Dershowitz inciting against a political opponent, calling him "evil" and a "traitor" to the Jewish people on Israeli Army Radio. [4]
Those of us who believe that Israel should be a symbol of Jewish and democratic values in action must fight back right now. The very character and quality of Israel’s democracy and civil society is under threat.
Click here to sign our open letter in support of Israel’s democracy and civil society.
Our plan is to collect 10,000 signatures on this open letter, then publicly and personally deliver them to the organizations and individuals who need to hear our pro-democracy, pro-civil rights, pro-Israel message. We’ll push our story hard with the media – and use these deliveries to generate coverage.
Our first delivery stop will be the pro-civil rights protesters in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s Executive Director, will go to show them that American Jews who love and care about Israel’s vibrant democracy stand with them as they exercise their basic democratic rights and protest Palestinian home evictions in East Jerusalem. Then, we’ll take your signatures to the extremist organization – Im Tirtzu – running that despicable ad against the New Israel Fund, demanding they end their attacks on the preeminent defenders of Israel’s civil society. We’ll also make sure everyone knows where Im Tirtzu gets its money — $100,000 from Christians United For Israel, whose founder, John Hagee, once said that Hitler was sent by God to force Jews to move to Israel, and the New York City-based settlement-funding charity called Central Fund for Israel that holds their accounts. [5] [It’s always easy to bash Christian Zionists, though big American Jews are all over this deal… –Weiss]
The same fund supports trips to the United States for extremist settler activist Nadia Matar, who even called for the assassination of Mahmoud Abbas in a New York City synagogue during one of her trips. [6]
We will also make sure your open letter ends up in the hands of Alan Dershowitz, so that he sees that 10,000 Americans who support Israel also reject over-the-top personal demonization, even about political opponents, to achieve narrow political gains.
We won’t stop there – not for a moment – because we all know that there are many more challenges to Israel’s democracy, the lack of a two-state solution being at the top of the list.
Click here to sign our open letter in support of Israel’s democracy. Thanks so much for all you do.
We’ll be in touch soon about next steps for this critical campaign. – Isaac
Isaac Luria
J Street Campaigns Director
February 2, 2010
P.S. View the despicable ad attacking the New Israel Fund here.
[1] "Court frees Sheikh Jarrah protesters, says arrest was illegal," by Nir Hasson. Haaretz, January 17, 2010.
[2] "Women of the Wall Leader Interrogated by Police," by Jane Eisner. The Forward, January 6, 2010.
[3] "Rightists Target New Israel Fund Over Grantees’ Goldstone Testimony," by J.J. Goldberg. The Forward, January 31, 2010.
[4] "Dershowitz: Goldstone is a traitor to the Jewish people," by Haaretz Service. Haaretz, January 31, 2010.
[5] "Hagee and CUFI fund anti-NIF campaign organizer," by Didi Remez. Coteret, February 1, 2010.
[6] ‘Rabbi Rejects Assassination Call at N.Y. Shul," by JTA Wire Service. The Baltimore Jewish Times, March 26, 2009. [Weiss: Interestingly, I broke this story, but Luria credits JTA. And I know why. Mondo is radioactive in the Jewish community, or is perceived by organizational leadership that way. So Luria can’t credit me. Hey it comes with the territory.]
