Israel Matzav

Confirmed: New Israel Fund supports BDS

You will all recall the self-righteous outrage of the Left - both in Israel and abroad - over attacks by a small organization called Im Tirtzu on the New Israel Fund, whose constituent organizations provided most of the material for the nefarious Goldstone Report.

The New Israel Fund now admits for the first time that they fund organizations that advocate BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) attacks against the State of Israel. Until now, they've always claimed that they were against BDS.

NIF supports an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories as a central tenet of the strategic framework in which we operate. The tactics known as 'boycott, divestment and sanctions' (BDS) are designed to pressure Israel to end the occupation, but NIF believes these tactics to be unproductive, inflammatory and ineffective because of the difficulties in defining an approach that is not overly broad, does not delegitimize Israel and will achieve the long-term goal.

Although we will continue to communicate publicly and privately to our allies and grantees that NIF does not support BDS as a strategy or tactic, we will not reduce or eliminate our funding for grantees that differ with us on a tactical matter. NIF will not fund BDS activities nor support organizations for which BDS is a substantial element of their activities, but will support organizations that conform to our grant requirements if their support for BDS is incidental or subsidiary to their significant programs.

In other words, NIF doesn't support BDS, except when it does. Jeffrey Goldberg describes this as 'disconcerting' and notes:

The way I read this, the NIF does not support the attempt by anti-Israel activists to turn the world's only Jewish country into a pariah state, and Jews into a target -- once again -- of a broad-based economic boycott. Except when it does, a little. It would seem that if the New Israel Fund believes BDS to be immoral, then it would defund grantees that support BDS, even incidentally. This is one of those bright-line issues, and if NIF wants to get on the wrong side of that line, it should not call itself a pro-Israel organization.

Jeffrey, that's exactly correct. Sounds just like J Street, doesn't it? Isn't it funny how the biggest Leftist groups that are 'pro-Israel' are turning out not to be so pro-Israel these days? They look more like Trojan horses to me.

Labels: boycott divest sanction, Im Tirtzu, Jeffrey Goldberg, New Israel Fund, Trojan horses

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:24 AM