Melanie Phillips: Cracks in the bulwarks of decency
Why are The Critic and the Spectator rehashing inane anti-Israel malice?
Two things stand out from this. The first is not just the number of errors in these articles, but their eye-watering dislocation from easily ascertainable reality and factual evidence.
The second is that this malicious propaganda aimed at destroying Israel’s right to exist is the hallmark of elements on the left, which trade on both ignorance and ideological obsession. Both the Spectator and The Critic are supposed to stand against all that by providing intelligent and informed writing that elevates public discourse. Yet with these two pieces, they have joined the ranks of those who instead are corrupting public discourse and closing the western mind against truth and decency.
What on earth were these two editors thinking by publishing them? They appear to have seen nothing wrong with them. Perhaps they thought — if they thought anything at all about them — that they were merely “a point of view” just like any other? A controversy on which these editors need not have an opinion, since all they have to do is hold the ring in suitably Socratic editorial fashion? Valid contributions to public debate?
But these lies, distortions and malicious libels against Israel are not valid contributions to public debate. They are part of a strategy to demonise, delegitimise and destroy Israel through a sustained propaganda campaign that has colonised the collective mind of the western intelligentsia.
A strategy deployed against no other country, people or cause in the world. A strategy that incites hatred, paranoia and murderous violence. A strategy cooked up in the sixties by the Soviet Union and Yasser Arafat to knock the west off its moral compass so that it could be weakened and defeated. A strategy that has paved the way for the hijack of language and destruction of reason which fuel “intersectionality” and identity politics, and which are de-moralising the west in every sense of that word.
This is the madness against which the Spectator and The Critic purport to act as a vital bulwark. Now, alas, that bulwark has cracked and is gaping wide open on a lethal battleground.
Amb. Tzipi Hotovely: Are we for free expression and dialogue or intolerance and violence?
Last week, I was invited to talk to students at the London School of Economics. The event was an open discussion about the new era in the Middle East, an era of collaboration between new partners who took the bold step of opening a fresh chapter and starting a dialogue.Gerald Steinberg: European Funding for Palestinian NGOs as Political Subcontracting
While inside the hall a very interesting conversation took place about the role of Israel as the only democratic state in the Middle East and the challenges we face, while outside the venue crowds of people called to silence me. The contrast in the two scenes speaks volumes. Dialogue and critical thinking are the cornerstones on which universities were founded. In the Jewish tradition, open discussion is a fundamental value in which generations of Jewish scholars have been educated.
Freedom of expression is a core tenet of the Israeli system of government. Therefore, as an ambassador, I see it as my duty to have frank discussions with diverse groups about the realities in our region.
The situation in our region is complex and does not fit into a 280-character tweet. Only through in-depth conversation can one unravel those complexities. It is clear that the crowds who gathered to shout outside LSE did not seek discourse.They sought to achieve their will by violent means and the suppression of alternative voices.
I wish I could say this was the first time I have encountered such behaviour, but unfortunately, it is all too common. During the recent conflict in Gaza, we saw similar crowds demonstrating in front of the embassy, burning Israeli flags and trampling on them. Scenes that we see frequently in Iran.
In the neighbourhood where I live, there was a convoy of cars calling for death to Jews and inciting assaults against Jewish women because of a conflict happening in Israel. This is not only my experience: many in the Jewish community are living with the impact of such violence with the rise in anti-Semitic incidents reaching unprecedented levels in the past year.
Analysis of the 20-year history of European government funding for Palestinian NGOs reveals a number of important findings that contrast sharply with the declared objectives. Of particular importance is the constancy of this funding for a relatively small group of organizations, both in terms of the repetitive grants that are provided over numerous funding cycles (vertical clustering), and the practice by the numerous government frameworks (direct and indirect) in supporting the same recipients (horizontal clustering). The primacy of political subcontracting is reflected in the detailed patterns and close examination of the evidence, in contrast to official declarations and reports.By funding blacklisted NGOs, European governments are financing terror
Although the label “civil society” is used repeatedly by European officials to describe and justify these policies, the term is ambiguous and problematic in the Palestinian framework. In closed systems, as is the case both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as well as Hamas-controlled Gaza, these organizations would not be able to operate or receive funding without the approval of the authorities (the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, respectively). In addition, the centrality for the PFLP’s NGO network in European policy is particularly inconsistent with the concept of civil society.
These processes and relationships, through which hundreds of millions of euros were provided by European governments to Palestinian NGOs during a twenty-year period, have and continue to have substantial impacts. Instead of advancing the formal objectives of promoting peace, economic development, Palestinian democracy, and rapprochement, these policies sustained the conflict through campaigns alleging Israeli violations of “international law” and “apartheid,” as well as active participation in lawfare and boycott campaigns.
The application of the political subcontractor model clarifies many of the otherwise inexplicable and inconsistent explanations for the deeply entrenched relationships between European governments and the selected group of Palestinian NGOs. When viewed from this perspective, the exchange of state funds for NGO services, through means that European officials and diplomats are unable to pursue themselves, is consistent with the evidence and the evolution of these policies. Although European support did not begin as a form of subcontracting, as officials recognized the influence and capabilities of the NGOs, these links evolved and strengthened, while benefiting from the image of altruism and independent civil society.
The subcontractor model also helps explain the unusual scale of European support for Palestinian NGOs, the small number of organizations involved, the overlapping contracts and the clustering, both vertical and horizontal, and the intense secrecy—all of which are unique when compared to other civil society relationships. European officials give very high priority to involvement (or at least the perception of involvement) in the Palestinian-Israeli arena, and for the reasons explained in this analysis, close cooperation with the specific group of NGOs provides an important addition to the otherwise limited sources of influence. From this perspective, the actual impacts on officially proclaimed objectives (Palestinian democracy, peace) are less important than this influence.
After twenty years, however, with little to show for hundreds of millions of euros in budgetary allocations, and in the light of recent revelations of terror links for a number of Palestinian NGO subcontractors, it might become more difficult to justify these relationships.
For over 10 years, NGO Monitor has published reports documenting the ties between numerous Palestinian civil society groups and the PFLP (full disclosure, I served as NGO Monitor’s managing editor and Canada liaison in 2016-2020). Using only open-source information, often simple Google and Facebook searches, the research institute has, piece by piece, put together a clear network of foreign government-backed organizations with leadership serving dual roles in the NGOs and in the terror group.
NGO Monitor staff traveled to governments around the world and to the United Nations, presenting this information and showing government officials the first-hand evidence linking the six NGOs to the PFLP terror group. Concerned members of parliament and senators have questioned their foreign aid offices in the public record about the suspicious funding, yet time and time again the governments refused to take action and cut funding.
The issue of the PFLP-tied NGO network even gained public and donor government attention in 2019, following the disclosure of a 50-person strong PFLP terror cell responsible for, inter alia, the murder of the 17-year-old Israeli girl Rina Shnerb. The cell included numerous members of these same government-funded NGOs. For instance, UAWC’s accountant Samir Arbid was, according to Israeli security officials, responsible for commanding the PFLP terror cell that carried out the bombing.
It is therefore almost laughable that governments are decrying the Israeli decision to formally designate the groups, and utilizing precious international resources like the UN Security Council to call for more “credible evidence.” These governments – whether the elected officials or government bureaucrats – have known for years that the six organizations had links to the PFLP terror group.
They have been presented with ample and publicly available and verifiable evidence. Only now, because an official government designation of a terror group will finally pressure governments to act on their own domestic terror laws and cease financing, are they up in arms and pretending as though they did not know the risks of using taxpayer funds to support such groups.
We can only hope that the public in each of the countries guilty of financing these six organizations will recognize this sheer failure of accountability and oversight and demand not only a cessation of funds but a reform in the foreign aid system to prevent such a farce from occurring again.