NIF Israel, the New Israel Fund’s Israel branch, has launched a fundraiser for aid to “hungry” Gazans “struggling to survive,” calling it “the right, moral, Jewish thing.”
In a May 19 email blast to NIF Israel’s newsletter subscribers requesting donations, the group quoted Leviticus 19:16, “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”
Eden Gadot, spokesman for NIF Israel, told JNS it’s the second such fundraising effort. In April, the group raised $1.75 million, in a joint effort with NIF in the U.S. “Now with the opening of humanitarian aid again, we say it’s the right time to make another effort,” he said.
NIF Israel appears to hold the Jewish state solely responsible for the situation in the Gaza Strip, referring in its email to “the severe siege” and the “renewal of the war,” which it claimed is “worsening the conditions” for the hostages, putting them in “immediate danger of death” and contributing nothing to Israel’s security.
Activists have denounced the fundraiser. Matan Peleg, author of “A State for Sale,” which details foreign interference in Israeli democracy, notes that NIF Israel doesn’t mention Hamas once in its email.
“The very fact that they are calling for collecting funds for this without first condemning Hamas is indecent. It shows they don’t know how to distinguish between good and evil,” Peleg told JNS.
“You have terrorists there who use children as human shields, and the New Israel Fund doesn’t call them out. Instead, they condemn the Jews. The New Israel Fund is a Judeophobic organization,” he said, adding that it doesn’t matter if it’s run by Jews.
Peleg also accused NIF Israel of “cynically” raising money “on the backs of other people’s tragedies,” noting that “everyone knows they’re taking overhead [expenses from the donations].”
Gadot defended his organization, saying the money will go to an aid group that coordinates with the Israel Defense Forces, ensuring that the supplies reach the intended recipients.
He said that the group also works on Israeli projects, including placing tens of thousands of evacuees in hotels, educational work with children and assisting the campaign to return the hostages from Gaza.
“The New Israel Fund is registered in Israel as a foreign organization,” Peleg noted. The group has “no connection to the State of Israel. It’s just a foreign fund. It has a branch here. OK, so it also has a branch in Australia,” he said.
“They want to change Israel from within, advancing efforts that delegitimize and demoralize the country. They jump on anything against the government. What does it mean to be against the government? It means they’re against the elected officials. They are against the people’s choice,” Peleg said.
NIF Israel is taking advantage of Israeli democracy to undermine it, he said. Adding insult to injury is that it enlists funds from progressive donors abroad, said Peleg, likening it to a kind of monetary colonialism.
In an ideal world, Israel would tell NIF to depart. “They should go interfere in San Francisco, not here,” Peleg said.
The New Israel Fund has been a controversial organization since its inception. Americans for A Safe Israel, a U.S.-based pro-Israel organization, produced a pamphlet in 1990 titled “The New Israel Fund: A New Fund for Israel’s Enemies.”
