by Matan Peleg
Sometimes it's hard to face up to the cold reality, but we must confront the insidious threat of foreign-funded left-wing NGOs waging Europe's war on Israel.
It is a function of the human condition that we are very easily given to denial. As a parent, one does not want to hear that your child misbehaved at school. We rationalize all sorts of behavior because we prefer to maintain an aura of tranquility. This is generally true on the national level as well. When a beloved or respected public figure is found to have engaged in immoral and/or illegal behavior, we find it very difficult to process the dissonance.
I receive plenty of criticism for my views and I am never shy in proffering criticism of those I feel should know better. This is normal political discourse. The recent brouhaha regarding the state funding of culture has shown one thing – that freedom of expression is not injured when the state refuses to subsidise projects which it determines are injurious and deleterious to society. Yet while this lesson is being internalised with respect to the arts, we remain oblivious to more pressing problems.
Im Tirzu has long sought to draw attention to the fact that many of the so-called human rights groups that operate in Israel are in fact foreign funded quislings who hurt Israel’s standing and reputation in the world. In a report that Im Tirzu published Tuesday, we have documented over twenty different instances of just three NGOs that have made it their business to embed themselves into international fora and mechanisms, such as the Economic-Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and the UN High Commission on Human Rights, the latter of which was the primary vehicle for the infamous and ultimately retracted Goldstone Report.
It is a matter of public record that the three organizations in question (Adalah, Ittjiah and Israelis against House Demolitions) have been the beneficiaries of millions of euros over the past decade. Both the European Commission and individual member states fund groups like these directly as well as funding larger organisations such as the New Israel Fund, who in turn disburse the funds to these organisations and others like it.
It is time to call a spade a spade, reclassify these organizations as foreign funded lobbies and subject them to the same scrutiny and transparency as similar groups undergo in the West, where in countries such as the United States and Britain, they are required by law to declare their donors and political intentions. Legislation mandating transparency has already been suggested in various forms and is urgently required to mitigate the damage groups like Adalah have done and continue to do to the State of Israel.
Matan Peleg
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/17085#.VYKy4kazd-9
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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