© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
An update has been released for the Android version of the WAMC App that addresses performance issues. Please check the Google Play Store to download and update to the latest version.

Herbert London: The State Department’s Support Of Anti-Israel Activity

Although it has received little public attention, recently the U.S. State Department granted the New Israel Fund and its social change and political lobbying organization – known as SHATIL – one million dollars under a program designed to promote political change and reform in the Middle East. This government program, Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), gives $600 million in grants to “social activists and reformers” in 18 Middle East nations. The list of nations includes Algeria, Libya, Lebanon and Yemen among others. MEPI’s sphere of engagement curiously includes Israel, the only stable democracy in the region.

Since the New Israel Fund is devoted to the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), the grant from the State Department presuppose sanctioning efforts to demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel. Knesset Deputy Speaker, YoniChetboun, said the New Israel Fund (NIF) is bent on “erasing the Jewish identity from the Jewish State.” He added that NIF represents “the biggest left-wing lobby in Israel.” Prime Minister Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party both derided NIF as “anti-Zionist.”

Needless to say, NIF denies the accusations, noting it is only interested in “internal change.” However, the State Department grant, willynilly, vouchsafes NIF legitimacy for its political actions and seemingly approves of its interference in Israel’s upcoming election. However, one describes this State Department program, it is an attempt to interfere with the politics of Israel through strikes, protests and other forms of activism. While there may be justification for assisting grass roots organizations in their efforts to destabilize dictatorships like Iran, using American taxpayer money to influence Israeli politics is clearly unjustified.

The BDS movement against Israel, which NIF embodies, is an ideological war to demonize Israel as a racist, “Apartheid state.” It has applied lies, misunderstanding and Orwellian logic as instruments in this war whose sole purpose is to ostracize and isolate Israel as a state bereft of “social justice.”

For those in this movement, social justice translates into a Palestinian state with Israel retreating behind 1967 borders. Yet the movement goes beyond this point. For BDS, Zionism is the essential evil, only dismantling the Jewish state can address it.

Many in this movement and in the NIF are idealists, dedicated radicals, either unaware or uncaring that they are being manipulated by Islamists and their sympathizers in the West. But the leaders of BDS know precisely what they are doing. In eliciting support from around the globe, they hope to make Israel into a state without allies, an outlier in the international community.

Unfortunately the American citizen most probably does not know how his tax money is being used. Some might contend the State Department grant to SHATIL is the continuation of President Obama’s anti-Israel campaign, perhaps financial retaliation for Netanyahu’s speech to the Congress. Even if this isn’t the case, it is odd that the State Department would apply grants to an organization that wants to disrupt a democratic nation. Isn’t a stable democracy in the vicinity of a nest of vipers what we should be supporting?

NIF has confused many youthful Jews with its dissimulation. It is too bad these young people are unaware of Voltaire’s admonition, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” 

Herbert London is President of the London Center for Policy Research, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the book The Transformational Decade (University Press of America). You can read all of Herb London’s commentaries atwww.londoncenter.org

 

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

Related Content