The New Israel Fund’s Agenda: Defame Israel, Drag Its Officials before the ICC, and Encourage Support for Hamas among Its Arab Citizens

A self-styled “Zionist” organization committed to “progressive values,” the New Israel Fund (NIF) gives millions of dollars every year to far-left organizations inside the country. In response to the recent disturbances in Gaza, its beneficiaries sprang into action, with B’tselem and Breaking the Silence sending their representatives to slander the IDF on television while another recipient of its largesse, Adalah, participated in promoting a UN resolution condemning Israel for defending itself. Gilad Zwick elaborates:

At the end of the session at the UN where it was decided to investigate Israel, the Adalah lawyer Suhir Asad did not hide her disappointment at Australia for being one of the two countries voting against the resolution—the other being the U.S. Asad also fiercely condemned the representatives of states who dared condemn Hamas and had the temerity to agree that Israel has the right to defend itself. In other words, the Adalah representative does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization and thinks Israel does not have the right to exist. . . .

The involvement of the NIF in Israeli affairs does not end with activity abroad. It also supports protests in favor of Hamas by Israeli Arabs. During one such protest in Haifa on Friday, some nineteen people were arrested, including Jafer Farah, the director of the Mousawwa Center. . . . Mousawwa rejects Israel’s right of self-determination and in 2006 its activists published a position paper describing the country’s future as a “state of all its citizens” [rather than a Jewish state], a transformation that would include the changing of the national flag and anthem and the repeal of the Law of Return. . . . In 2014, while meeting with the president of the EU parliament, Farah [falsely] accused Israel of carrying out a “forced transfer” of the Arab population. . . . [T]he NIF gave Mousawwa more than 5 million shekels between 2008 and 2016.

The NIF website notes when it will refuse to support organizations that engage in the “selective advancement of human rights for a particular group at the expense of another group.” This should mean that the agenda of Adalah and other NIF-backed groups who reject Israel’s right to self-defense and consider the lives of Gazans to be worth more than those of Israeli citizens is enough to justify support being ended. In the past, the NIF claimed that it “supports the important legal work of Adalah, but this does not mean we support every statement to the press of position of the organization.” In other words, the NIF gave Adalah millions of shekels but disavows responsibility for the organization’s actions and the enormous harm it does the state of Israel.

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