JERUSALEM – As two weeks of “Israel Apartheid” events begin on college campuses and in major cities on three continents, Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor has released a report detailing non-governmental organization (NGO) participants and their funders.
The report lists the main speakers, screenings, and subjects planned for the March 1-14 Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). Many scheduled speakers are officials of NGOs funded by European governments and the New Israel Fund (NIF).
NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg said: “The ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ framework is used by pro-Palestinian activists as part of the political war to demonize and delegitimize Israel, and to promote the boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign.” BDS is the core strategy emanating the NGO Forum of the UN’s 2001 Durban Conference, where 1,500 organizations branded Israel as “a racist, apartheid state’ practicing “a crime against humanity.”
“Speakers include officials of ‘human rights’ NGOs operating in Israel and the Palestinian Authority that seek to delegitimize Israel by employing the false comparison to South African apartheid,” Steinberg said. “This allegation has no basis in international law. It exploits the suffering of the real victims of racism, and is an attempt to transform a political dispute into a racial conflict.”
NGO Monitor’s report details funding for about a dozen radical NGOs participating in IAW. Among them are Adalah (funded by NIF and the European Union (EU)); Alternative Information Center (Sweden); Addameer (Scandinavian countries); Palestinian Center for Human Rights (EU, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Oxfam NOVIB, and Christian Aid); and Breaking the Silence (NIF, EU, United Kingdom, and other European sources).
For instance, on March 9, a representative from NIF- and EU-funded Adalah will speak under the heading of “Apartheid as it is experienced by Palestinian citizens of Israel.”In North America, IAW activities and speakers are supported by groups including the Canadian Arab Federation, which recently lost its government funding as a result of its “promotion of hatred, anti-Semitism and support for the banned terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah,” and the Independent Jewish Voices, which officially supports BDS.
NGO Monitor, a non-profit organization founded in 2003, generates and distributes analysis and reports on the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy-makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations, and the general public. We publicize distortions of human rights issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict and provide information on NGOs working in the Middle East, aiming to end the exploitation of the label “universal human rights values” by NGOs that promote politically and ideologically motivated anti-Israel agendas.
1 Ben Maimon Blvd, Jerusalem, 92268
Tel: +972-2-566-1020 Fax: +972-77-511-7030
For more info contact [email protected]
