Criticizing Israel’s critics

By Malka Eisenberg

Steinberg chairs the political science department at Bar Ilan University and is the president of NGO Monitor, an organization that publicizes wha it considers anti-Israel actions by non-governmental organizations involved in Israeli-Arab relations. He spoke at the Young Israel of Woodmere as part of a national tour.

“We have to spread the word,” Steinberg exhorted the audience.

Steinberg founded NGO Monitor after the 2001 Durban Conference in South Africa.

“The Durban conference, for me, set off alarm bells,” explained Steinberg, adding that that a preliminary conference in Teheran in February 2001 under the sponsorship of the UN Human Rights Commission excluded Israelis and Jews and set the stage for the anti-Israel agenda of the September meeting.

“A straight line can be drawn from Durban to the Goldstone report,” Steinberg said, referring to the report by a South African judge that condemned Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.

Non-governmental organizations, also called civil society organizations, are independent organizations funded by governments, the UN, private donors, religious groups and other non-government organizations. The term came into use in 1945. The goals of an NGO are generally set by its donors and members. Non-governmental organizations, Steinberg explained, can be certified as consultants through the UN’s Economic and Social Council. By 2006 over 2000 organizations had this status, up from 69 in 1948.

Organizations like Amnesty International and Helsinki Watch actively objected to human rights abuses in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but currently many high profile NGOs are using their substantial funding and visibility to vilify Israel and promote an anti-Israel agenda.

Steinberg cited several major anti-Israel media blitzes that were traced to reports issued by non-government organizations. These included the claim of a “massacre” in Jenin in 2002; protests against the “Apartheid Wall” in 2004, and the accusation of “collective punishment” and the claims of Israel’s use of civilians as human shields in Gaza. None of those reports were substantiated; upon investigation each was proven false. However, said Steinberg, “the news media pick it up and don’t investigate since these organizations are considered to be neutral and accurate watchdogs.”

“Hamas attacks Israel and the international community does nothing. Israel reacts and is condemned by the world,” explained Steinberg.

Steinberg said that the non-government organizations play a role in campaigns for boycotts and divestments from Israel. The Goldstone Report was “page after page from reports of NGO’s,” Steinberg said, and Justice Richard Goldstone is on the board of Human Rights Watch, an organization that often targets Israel.

Steinberg singled out Human Rights Watch as example of the atmosphere in which NGO’s operate. Human Rights Watch is funded by the European Union and the New Israel Fund, which is funded by the Ford Foundation. The New Israel Fund, an organization that has called on Israeli soldiers not to serve, said Steinberg, dedicates one third of its budget to funding “the most dangerous” non-governmental organizations.

Ir Amim, which promotes the “Palestinian narrative” and a divided Jerusalem, is funded by The New Israel Fund.

“Everyday [it] spreads misinformation, and sells the Palestinian version of Jerusalem to the international community,” Steinberg said. “It’s an Israeli-Jewish organization, smooth and intelligent and anti-Israel.”

By funding these organizations, The New Israel Fund, said Steinberg, “gives these organizations a hechsher, it justifies Hamas terrorism.”

B’Tselem, Bimkom, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel were also singled out by Steinberg as promoters of an anti-Israel agenda.

“If the army says something, issues a statement, the media check it and don’t believe it,” said Steinberg. “If the NGOs say something, the media believe without question.”

The goal of NGO Monitor is “to force organizations to be transparent; who is funding them, who is making decisions. We need accountability, checks and balances and morality. They are excluding the rights of Jews in this.” NGOs often issue reports without the context and background of Arab attacks, terrorism and the history of the area, he said.

NGO Monitor attempts to set the record straight through press releases, ad campaigns, op-eds and letters.

When Steinberg presented the facts to Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, Bernstein castigated the organization on its anti-Israel stance in an op-ed to the New York Times.

Noting what it called Human Rights Watch’s “visceral hatred of Israel,” NGO Monitor investigated “senior military analyst” Marc Garlasco’s role in negative analyses and allegations against Israel that Steinberg said were unsubstantiated, and exposed Garlasco’s lack of expertise and his “obsessive collection of Nazi memorabilia.” Garlasco was suspended from Human Rights Watch earlier this year.

(A recent article in The New Republic by Benjamin Birnbaum offered a different point of view, claiming that of all the employees at Human Rights Watch, Garlasco, a former Pentagon and Department of Defense employee, had the most military experience. The article also claimed that Garlasco was a moderate voice inside the organization when it came to Israel.)

“I think we’ve turned the tide,” said Steinberg. “We’ve seen one head roll, we’ve raised enough questions that now the New York Times is checking accuracy. It takes a lot of work. It’s time for these organizations to be subjected to serious scrutiny.”

Concerned people should spread the word, write letters, op-eds and donate to NGO Monitor, said Dr. Steinberg. For more information see www.ngo-monitor.org.