Owning a PR firm, I know a tad about spin. The New Israel Fund (NIF) is facing an intense campaign which challenges their donors, and exposes their true intentions – and they are responding.
This weekend, Rachel Liel, Israel director of the NIF was featured in an article in YNET, the online version of Yediot Achronot. Using convenient half-truths, Liel discussed the importance of NIF projects which benefit minorities, benefits ultra-Orthodox women, and other fairly mainstream projects which few Israelis take offense at.
What was conveniently ignored was the fact that a significant portion of NIF’s $30 Million budget is spent on projects which directly harm the State of Israel. The New Israel Fund is a dangerous, radical organization which wraps their programs in a “respectable” package. They are rejected by the majority of Israelis across the political spectrum.
What has not yet been exposed is the fact that Rachel Liel’s husband, Alon is one of the world’s leading organizers of world boycotts against Israel. He is also a co-organizer of the campaign to call on European countries to undermine Israeli sovereignty by “recognizing” the “State of Palestine.” Alon Liel, Israel’s former ambassador to South Africa is a member of two organizations which receive large funding by NIF. He is on the management team of Ir Amin, which works against Jewish interests in Jerusalem, and is also a member of the B’Tselem Public Council.
Alon Liel supports a cultural boycott of Israel, having supported author Alice Walker’s Anti-Semitic refusal to allow a Hebrew translation of her bestseller “The Color Purple.” He works extensively worldwide on PR campaigns which harm Israel, working to generate headlines which read “Boycott My Country.”
He holds radical viewpoints which the majority of Israelis, even on the left oppose, from calling on High School trips to the Golan to be cancelled as they are “a provocation to peace”, to claiming that the boycott is a “more pressing issue than the Iran issue.” The man has endorsed an academic boycott against Israeli academic institutions, and has called Jonathan Pollard a traitor.
Liel noted, “The simple act of marking settlement products differently to Israeli products pulls the rug from under the refusal to declare a border. I buy Israeli products every day and do my best not to buy Israeli products from the Occupied Territories. I don’t see why you, living outside Israel, shouldn’t have the same choice.” Actress Scarlett Johansson was rightfully applauded across the Pro-Israel spectrum on this very issue – and the Liel’s must be condemned.
Yet, the Liel’s are two peas in a pod.
Last week Rachel Liel had an interview in Yedioth Achronot, where she referred to accusations that NIF organizations handed information to the Goldstone Commission by claiming that “The information was taken from publications and from websites and was not actively delivered to Goldstone.” At the same time, Adala, a major NIF organization claims the opposite on their website, as they note “This week, seven human rights organizations based in Israel presented a report to the UNFact-Finding team investigating allegations of war crimes during “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza, led by Justice Richard Goldstone.”
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
The New Israel Fund must be ostracized and rejected by the Jewish community.