The Naomi Chazan saga

[Middle East News Service comments: For several days now I’ve been following the attacks by an Israeli right wing group Im Tirtzu on the New Israel Fund and its head, Professor Naomi Chazan. As a previous news item posted here indicated, the matter is of special interest to Australians as Prof Chazan was due to arrive here next week. Well, no more. Apparently the attacks were successful in persuading Israel’s fair weather friends in the Union of Progressive Judaism to drop Chazan as being too controversial for their fund raising aims. On their own website the UPJ has republished the J-wire account (third item below) suggesting that the parting was amicable and postponement only temporary. But you have to go a long way from Melbourne to the Jerusalem Post (immediately below) for some more telling words.

“According to ZCV President Dr. Danny Lamm, news of the report, and the Hebrew copy of it found on Im Tirtzu’s Web site, had generated angry responses throughout the Melbourne Jewish community and the decision was made to withdraw Chazan’s invite.

“’The activities of the NIF are anathema to Zionist groups such as ours, and frankly, we’re just not interested in having anything to with it,’ Dr. Lamm told the Post by telephone from Melbourne on Tuesday.”

A reconciliation between the UPJ or the UIA Progressive and Chazan is unlikely if we can assume that the Post is quoting her accurately: I’m very disappointed that the [Union of Progressive Judaism] has decided to bow to extreme and unfounded right-wing accusations... They are capitulating to ideas that are antithetical to the essential world view of their movements.”

In the meantime if you are actually interested in the allegations, the most intelligent and comprehensive response to them came from two Ma’ariv senior reporters, social affairs correspondent Merav David and diplomatic affairs correspondent Maya Bengel. It is the last item and by far the most important reading included in this compilation. Thanks to Coteret’s Didi Remez it contains a large number of links for any further follow up you may wish to pursue.

Please forward widely within the Australian Jewish community including your Facebook pages.

Sol Salbe

Melbourne Jews cancel Chazan visit after NIF blasted

By ABE SELIG
03/02/2010 06:59

NIF chairwoman disinvited after Im Tirtzu charges NGO with responsibility for Goldstone allegations.

In light of allegations contained in a report by the Zionist student organization Im Tirtzu, which accused the New Israel Fund of direct responsibility for the UN’s Goldstone Report on the IDF’s Gaza offensive last winter, The Jerusalem Post has learned that an invitation for NIF chairwoman Prof. Naomi Chazan to speak at a synagogue and Jewish community center in Melbourne, Australia, this month has been canceled.

According to a former member of the Melbourne Jewish community now living in Israel, Chazan had been invited to speak as part of a United Israel Appeal fund-raiser at Temple Beth Israel and the Beth Weizmann Community Center in Melbourne next weekend, but the allegations raised by the Im Tirtzu report had “sparked an enormous backlash” among community members there and the invitation had been rescinded.

Among the claims contained in the report, Im Tirtzu has alleged that 16 Israeli NGOs that received more than $7 million from the New Israel Fund in 2008-2009 provided 92 percent of the Goldstone document’s allegations criticizing the IDF’s conduct during Operation Cast Lead.

See the full article: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=167653

[The independent Middle East News Service concentrates on providing alternative information chiefly from Israeli sources. It is sponsored by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the AJDS. These are expressed in its own statements]

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