Naomi Chazan, the NIF & the Zionist Council of Vic

[Middle East News Service comments: It is my practice as Editor of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society Newsletter to prioritise my readers and ensure that they see certain items ahead of everyone else. However, this is such an important item that I am circulating this advance copy to this list two days before publication. The same article appears on the website of the Australian Jewish News although an electronic word count indicates that that it is shorter. I note for example that the last four words are missing from the AJN’s version -- Sol Salbe.]

A campaign by the obscure right-wing Israeli group Im Tirtzu against the New Israel Fund (NIF) complete with newspaper ads, billboards and demonstrations has
already fallen on its face. The claims in the Im Tirtzu report that NIF grantees provided 92 per cent of the material in the Goldstone report have been well and truly debunked.

As it turns out NIF grantees have provided 92 per cent of the material provided by Israeli NGOs. But the bulk of the Goldstone report‘s material came from Israeli government statements, UN sources, Palestinians and even
Israeli newspapers like Ma'ariv that have taken up the cudgels against the NIF. But even that does not tell the full story. One of the NIF grantees, A Different Voice from Sderot did provide information to Goldstone but that was about the suffering of residents from the Palestinian rocket attacks! Hardly an anti-Israeli activity.

But the best defence of the NIF concentrates not so much on the facts and figures but on the principles involved. Dr Nathan Cherny has taken up the comments made by Dr Danny Lamm, President of the Zionist Council of Victoria, whose organisation withdrew support from a local fund-raising meeting which was due to be addressed by Naomi Chazan, the president of the NIF.

From here in Israel, I am disturbed and distressed by Danny Lamm’s claim that the kind of things the NIF supports are “so far from the Jewish community in Melbourne” so as to make them “unacceptable”. Based in Washington and Jerusalem, the New Israel Fund has a thirty-year record of supporting non-profit organisations committed to building a more just and democratic Israeli society, the kind of Jewish society that I want for my children. Of the various funding organisations active in Israel, it is probably the most important supporting this vital agenda.

As a son of the community, whose Aliya was predicated on the values I learned growing up in the Melbourne Jewish community, I believe that the issues that the NIF has championed are exactly the kind of things that this community holds dear; an Israel that is just, that promotes equality and the right of its citizens and residents to live in dignity.

As much as I love Israel, and despite its many achievements, I recognise that Israel is a troubled country with a litany of issues that need urgent redress: corruption, inequality, disenfranchised minority groups and a fragile democracy. It is easy to criticise, but because I am a Zionist I am here to make a difference and to be a part of the many people to want to see a better Israel.

I cannot believe that the Jewish community of Australia (where I was born and where my father, brother and so many friends live) would not be interested in bridging social and economic gaps (now the second highest among all Western countries [the OECD says it’s the highest]), in promoting equal rights for Arab citizens, in advancing the status of women, in fostering tolerance and freedom of religious expression, in increasing government accountability and the rule of law, in strengthening efforts to protect the environment and public health, in promoting peace with the Palestinians, and so much more. These are the agenda of the NIF!

Without the non-profit organisations supported by the NIF, many “invisible Israelis” would have no voice: from Ethiopians, to the impoverished Bedouin citizens of the Negev and the neglected development towns; the NIF believes that Israel has a special responsibility to uphold its founders’ vision and traditional Jewish values of fairness and equity. Is this beyond the interest of the community?

The NIF has championed equal access to education for all in Israel – whether for Sephardic girls segregated from their Ashkenazi classmates in ultra-orthodox schools, the Bedouin children who must walk to school on dangerous unpaved roads, or the Ethiopian immigrant pupils denied entrance to public schools in Petach Tikva. Is this what Danny Lamm calls “unacceptable”?

Without the non-profit organisations supported by the NIF there would not be a vibrant civil rights movement in Israel. In the past thirty years, nearly every judicial decision in Israel in the area of civil and human rights was achieved either by an NIF-supported organisation or by attorneys whose careers and skills were shaped by their experience and training sponsored by the NIF. These have been big issues ranging from the prohibition of torture in civilian interrogations to changes in the route of the separation fence in order to respect humanitarian concerns, the rights of people with disabilities, women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights and the rights of Israeli-born children of foreign workers.

The NIF is the major promoter of the many moves to release Israelis from the ultra-orthodox stranglehold on religious life that causes so much distress and hardship here in Israel. The NIF is the largest funder of moderate Orthodox organisations that are courageously advocating for solutions for the thousands of agunot and women whose husbands refuse to grant them a get, protesting the degrading sex-segregated public bus lines in Jerusalem, and speaking out against gross expressions of religious racism (such as the recent publication of Torah of the King which argued that religious law permits the killing of any non-Jew who poses a theoretical threat, including children and babies).

The NIF maintains an ongoing struggle to allow true freedom of religious expression in Israel to allow all Jews to express and celebrate their Jewishness in a way that is meaningful and appropriate for them. I cannot believe that these things do not resonate with communities like Melbourne and Sydney, which have cultivated such rich diversity of Jewish life and religious expression.

I believe in “Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof”, the imperative of actively pursuing justice as a core Jewish principle. Even in war, I want to be able to take pride in the justice of my country. If, and when, my country or its agencies stray through faulty decision making or command, I want a system that is ready to honestly investigate the claims and to candidly address them. This has been the approach of NIF-supported non-profit Israeli organisations (such as B’Tselem) calling for Israel to launch fair and independent investigations into some of the accusations arising out of Operation Cast Lead. Believe me, I want this not out of any self-hatred, but out of a profound sense of patriotism and love of my country.

That the New Israel Fund has come under attack from all sorts of extremist, rightwing, anti-democratic, and anti-pluralist persons and interest groups is not new. Among its most severe critics are the sorts of people who attack Israel’s judiciary, who defend a rigid Orthodox hegemony over Jewish life, promote Israeli annexation of the West Bank and the expulsion of the Palestinian community; elements that represent the “dark side” of the national discourse. The recent attacks by the rightwing organisation “Im-Tirtzu” (which prompted Danny Lamm’s commentary on the NIF) is only the latest attempt to silence the voice of civil society in Israel.

Paradoxically, when people attack Israel unfairly, the issues championed by the NIF are precisely the sorts of things cited by Israel’s defenders when they rebut the claims of Israel’s enemies and praise the vibrancy of Israeli democracy and the justice inherent in Israeli law!

While I recognise that trees, dams, parks and urban renewal (the sorts of things traditionally supported by the JNF, UIA and Keren Hayesod) are important, the promotion of civil society and social justice in Israel is even more so. Because I believe that these things are close to the hearts of the Jewish communities of Australia, I believe that the New Israel Fund should become as important a part of the philanthropic agenda of the Australian Jewish community as it is in the United States and in Europe.

When Danny Lamm claims that the agenda of the NIF is unpatriotic or anti-Zionist, he not only slurs the organisation, he slurs supporters like me and my wife Nancy and the kind of Zionism to which we have committed our lives and the lives of our family. We take personal offence.

Nathan Cherny is a Melbourne-born medical specialist who heads the Oncology Unit in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Centre. He sent this out to his list. Other than minor spelling and grammatical changes we have left it as it is.

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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