Leftists: 'We're all on the payroll'
And you thought you had great community organizers in the US.... In Israel, the Left gets paid just for being. Are Israel's leftists pure ideologues or guns for hire? Yotam Feldman, who was born into the leftist camp – his father is liberal lawyer Avigdor Feldman – believes the latter.I wish someone would pay me to be an ideologue. There is no money on the Right. The Europeans don't support us. So I have to keep my day job.
In a Hebrew language post at the "Eretz HaEmori" blog, Feldman says that in his life, he has witnessed how Israel's "human rights movement" became a source of income for its activists. He relates how his father's old Subaru "gradually turned" into a BMW, and how the family moved from a rented apartment in Yafo to a spacious Tel Aviv apartment.
"When it came time to provide for myself, I also turned to fields that were somehow connected to the state of democracy in Israel," Feldman writes. These fields "gave me an interesting vocation and a salary that was not bad. Then I began to understand that there is something irreversible about belonging to this community. It seemed to me that whoever tied his fate – whether because of family lineage or a private decision – with the fate of the NGOs in Israel, guaranteed himself a livelihood… for most of his adult life."
Nor is his case extraordinary. "It is a well known but seldom stated fact that a very large part of the leftist activists in Tel Aviv earn their salaries in different ways from the human rights branch. Many of the prominent – and often most vocal – activists in the demonstrations are paid spokespeople, PR people, producers and organizers and of course, lawyers who man the tip of the pyramid in these groups."
"This is a pretty confusing situation because when you are standing in a demonstration or even just engaging in idle talk, it is not clear if the person next to you is expressing his opinion as a result of inner conviction or as an inseparable part of his job…"
What could go wrong?
Labels: European obsession with Israel, leftists, NGO funding
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:47 PM
2 Comments:
Heh. :)
Makes Israel Matzav a Freedom Zone.
"...often most vocal – activists in the demonstrations are paid spokespeople, PR people, producers and organizers and of course, lawyers who man the tip of the pyramid in these groups."
Not to mention "education professionals". This isn't just in Israel.
There's a company called "The Great Courses" where you can order up university courses on DVD (most involve graphics, not just audio) or some for download. I love it. But I stick mostly to math, physics, astronomy, other science stuff, music and art "appreciation" (one would not be mistaken in noticing that many Americans (including myself) are dolts in Fine Arts knowledge).
I want more history, lit, etc. but I refuse to buy them (or "climate science" or even meteorology type stuff, for that matter) because "education professionals" are seemingly teamed up with the media in disseminating falsehoods.
I've thought of contacting them to see whether they are open to courses that people may be developing from "outside the wire", but I don't know. I mean, they have a Western Civ course... that used to be required core for universities. But now I'm thinking it may just be an inaccurate slimefest against Western Civ, so I would not order it.
Anyway, they have a good distribution system set up and if they were open to "diversity of thought", then if courses are being developed outside the Left's wire, then maybe we could get them out there.
www.thegreatcourses.com
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