New Israel Fund: Funding Israel’s Destruction

In recent weeks in the U.S., there has been an outpouring of anger against the New Israel Fund (NIF) for their ongoing anti-Israel activities.  Numerous exposes in the New York Observer, Jewish media outlets, word of mouth and more are challenging Jewish donors to the NIF on how they can allow themselves to harm Israel. 

And there is more planned, including advertising campaigns and websites.

And the focus upon the NIF’s support for BDS has left donors unable to respond with any justification – as only people who oppose Israel can support BDS. Tellingly, Alisa Doctoroff, President of the UJA Federation, has been silent in the face of calls for her to resign due to her financial support for NIF, and so too has Karen R. Adler, a leader of the JCRC and the Jewish Communal Fund.

There is a conflict of interest between supporting NIF and BDS and serving on the board of a Jewish organization. 

The only public comment has come from attorney Michael Sfard, who represents NIF-funded organizations and Peace Now, Yesh Din, etc., and who issued a statement on the NIF website  without responding to the facts which were revealed i.e. that he testified on behalf of the PLO at the New York trial where the organization was found guilty of international terrorism and murder...

He did not refute the accurate claims that he testified for the PLO, that the NIF supports BDS, or attempt to deny the countless other anti-israel activities NIF is involved with.

Yet, they continue with their dangerous work.  The New Israel Fund/Shatil is now advertising a social-justice fellowship, a “10 month experience where fellows spend 32 hours per week interning in an approved, individually-selected Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO),” in an area of importance to these [self-hating] Jews.

Examine what Israeli daily Ma’ariv – no friend of the “right” - wrote of a previous NIF/Shatil training seminar.

A participant wrote that she found herself training “with Palestinian and Jewish human rights activists who negated the State of Israel's existence. With people who want to annihilate the State without ruling out violent means, who believe that the State of Israel was born out of sin and who apologize for its existence, who loathe Israel and its symbols, who justify harming Israel, its soldiers and all its institutions, who devote their lives and efforts towards turning Israel into a bi or multi-national country. These people are fighting for one nationality alone – Palestinian. These same people oppose communal or civil national service for Arabs within the State. They also equate Israel's actions with those of Nazi Germany.”

She further noted, “I found myself with human rights activists who reject Israel’s right to exist. Who are striving for the destruction of Israel. Do NIF donors know that their money is funding the destruction of the state?” 

"Do the supporters of the Fund have any idea that the numerous organizations benefiting from its support and counsel are putting all their effort into negating Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? Is the Fund itself openly working towards removing the 'Jewishness' from the State? Is the Fund trying to turn Israel into a country 'for all her inhabitants' (editor's note: this phrase is used by those who do not wish Israel to be called a Jewish state or homeland) alongside a Palestinian state? Is the Fund backing the fact that the aim of the Palestinian society sector within Shatil is to strengthen the expression of the Palestinian nation, and that on the Jewish side of the spectrum the aim is to strengthen freedom of religion and not Jewish identity and the national expression of the Jews in their homeland?”

The New Israel Fund – and its donors – including Alisa Doctoroff, Murray Koppelman, the Leichtag Foundation and others are simply wrong.
As former President Clinton political strategist Hank Sheinkopf noted,

“Those who stand with New Israel Fund are standing against Israel. To suggest otherwise is a lie. I urge anyone affiliated with the NIF to stop supporting this organization financially. The New Israel Fund must be ostracized by the Jewish community.”