- Its web site (ngo-monitor.org) says it "was founded
to promote accountability, and advance a vigorous discussion on the reports
and activities of NGOs claiming to promote moral agendas, such as humanitarian
aid and human rights."
-
- In fact, it's a Jerusalem-based pro-Israeli front group,
disseminating propaganda and hate, debasing legitimate human rights organizations,
independent journalism, and other advocates for truth, equity and justice.
-
- Its director, Gerald Steinberg, is a Bar Ilan University
political science professor, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs, a steering committee member of the Forum on Antisemitism at the
Office of the (Israeli) Prime Minister, and various other organizations
promoting a pro-Israeli agenda.
-
- His report titled, "Trojan Horse: The Impact of
European Government Funding for Israeli NGOs" was jointly prepared
with the Institute for Zionist Strategies, headed by Israel Harel, co-founder
of the fundamentalist Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), a militant pro-settlement
group, wanting Palestinians dispossessed to provide more land for Jews.
-
- In it, they targeted international NGOs "continu(ing)
to exploit moral, legal and humanitarian principles in order to promote
political warfare against Israel. Many of the claims in (their) reports
are not supported by credible evidence, and reflect double standards. Through
this systemic bias regarding Israel, (they've) lost respectability, and
the European governments that fund such attacks share responsibility for
this abuse."
-
- No matter that respected human rights organizations,
jurists, activists, independent journalists, and other critics universally
condemn decades of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity, documenting
them extensively in articles and detailed reports, calling for accountability.
-
- In September, NOG Monitor (NGOM) published a report titled,
"Experts or Ideologues: Systematic Analysis of Human Rights Watch,
(HRW)" saying its Israeli/Palestinian conflict coverage:
-
- "shows a consistent pattern of ideological bias,
lack of professional qualifications, and unsupported claims based on faulty
evidence and analysis. These are then replicated by governments and international
organizations, including the United Nations, that adopt these allegations."
-
- HRW called the accusation "misleading," reflecting
a "deep misunderstanding of its role." Indeed so given its very
mixed record. Too often it's failed to fulfill its mandate to "protect
the human rights of people around the world....stand(ing) with victims
and activists... upholding political freedom (and) bring(ing) offenders
to justice."
-
- Instead, it more often serves imperial interests, mostly
America's and why not given its funding from establishment organizations
like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. Also billionaires like George
Soros and Edgar Bronfman, Jr. But even occasional Israeli criticism is
too much for NGOM. It tolerates none, attacking truth when it surfaces.
-
- NGOM's War on The Electronic Intifada (EI)
-
- Like Palestine Chronicle, Palestine Telegraph, and similar
web sites, EI is an "independent publication committed to comprehensive
public education on the question of Palestine, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and the economic, political, legal, and human dimensions of Israel's
(decades long) occupation of Palestinian territories."
-
- Sooner or later, that dedication is assaulted, recently
against EI by NGOM, an attack dog for Israel. On November 30, EI responded
in an article titled, "Why NGO Monitor is attacking The Electronic
Intifada," saying:
-
- "NGO Monitor has launched a campaign targeting a
Dutch foundation's (ICCO) financial support to (EI), accusing the publication
among others things of 'anti-Semitism.' " Along with Holocaust denial
and other spurious aspersions, it's how Israel vilifies critics.
-
- At issue is an attempt to cut off EI's funding to silence
it. "NGO Monitor has pressured the Dutch government, which subsidizes
ICCO, to end its support for (EI). (Unsurprisingly), Dutch Foreign Minister
Uri Rosenthal has apparently lent public credence to NGO Monitor's campaign...."
-
- ICCO supplies about one-third of EI's funding. Readers
provide the rest besides small amounts from private foundations. Governments
provide none.
-
- Criticizing Israel is world journalism's third rail.
In EI's case, like others, it's "part of a well-financed, Israeli-government
endorsed effort to silence (unfavorable) reporting...." Targeted writers
are denounced as anti-Semites, Jewish ones called self-hating. Publications
are attacked as "delegitimizers."
-
- Supporting Palestinian sovereignty, the right of return,
equity and justice, and campaigns like the global BDS movement (boycott,
divestment and sanctions) are heretical for pro-Israeli ideologues.
-
- NGOM is in "the forefront of a campaign to crush
internal dissent by Jewish groups in Israel that want to see (its) human
rights record improved." Like America, it's appalling with no regard
for international law or dozens of UN resolutions condemning or censuring
its treatment of Palestinians, deploring it, or demanding, calling on,
or urging it ends and the rule of law be enforced. Israel ignores them
all, remaining unaccountable.
-
- For its part, NGOM masquerades "as a project concerned
with" NGO accountability when, in fact:
-
- "It is a partisan operation that suppresses its
perceived ideological adversaries through the sophisticated use of McCarthyite
techniques - blacklisting, guilt by association and selective filtering
of facts," according to human rights activist/journalist Didi Remez.
-
- On November 6, in the Jerusalem Post, NGOM's Gerald Steinberg
and Jason Edelstein headlined, "Turning the tables on BDS," discussing
the formation of the Israel Action Network as "a vital resource to
combat (anti-Israeli) assaults." Allied with the Jewish Council of
Public Affairs (JCPA) and Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), NGOM
is part of a deep-pocketed smear campaign to "name and shame the groups
that lead and fund demonization."
-
- Key is cutting off their funding to silence them, EI
saying it aims "to shut down independent media (like themselves),
as well as human rights advocacy groups in Israel," Occupied Palestine,
and globally.
-
- In their article, Steinberg and Edelstein "specifically
named (EI) and its co-founder and executive director Ali Abunimah, as well
as Sabeel, the Palestinian Christian, ecumenical justice and peace movement,
and its founder Reverend Naim Ateek, as targets of the campaign."
-
- Early successes were cited in Canada and European countries,
governments there cutting funding "for some of the more poisonous
NGOs involved in BDS." In other words, those most effectively spreading
truth, the kind NGOM declared war on, "abusing terms like 'apartheid,'
'ethnic cleansing,' " or calling for a "one-state solution, meaning
the elimination of Israel."
-
- Besides EI, many other organizations have also been attacked,
including Amnesty International (AI), HRW, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins
Sans Frontieres, MSF), Adalah, Al-Haq, Mada al-Carmel (Arab Center for
Applied Social Research), B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, HaMoked, the
Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel
(ACRI), and the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee
Rights.
-
- Responding to NGOM, EI said it's "built a global
reputation since its founding, and states on its website that 'our views
on the conflict are based firmly on universal principles of international
law and human rights conventions, and our reporting is built on a solid
foundation of documented evidence and careful fact-checking."
-
- The same is true for publications like Palestine Chronicle,
Palestine Telegraph, and many other independent voices of truth against
hate, lawlessness, and pro-Israeli front groups like NGOM, maliciously
spreading propaganda to debase free expression, thought, and dissent, exposing
Israeli crimes of war and against humanity.
-
- EI says it's "closely tied to Israel's far-right,
its government and military as well as leading anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim
activists in the United States."
-
- Its International Advisory Board is a rogue's gallery
of warmongers, neocons, and racist Islamophobes, including Alan Dershowitz,
Elliott Abrams, James Woolsey, and Elie Weisel, a shameless self-promoter,
Holocaust exploiter, and apologist for the most outrageous Israeli crimes.
-
- With greater public awareness producing growing support
for Palestine, "Israel's leaders and apologists (like NGOM) are becoming
more desperate and unscrupulous than ever," clueless that no matter
how great their flack, nothing will deter momentum for peace, equity and
justice until inevitably it's achieved, the power of truth in the vanguard
promoting it.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
|
