Monday, April 19, 2010
A couple of examples of Israeli NGO staffers not helping their already embattled bosses...
From NGO Monitor: Lizi Sagie (B'Tselem/Mossawa/CWP) Compares Israel to Nazis
Blog entries written in 2009 by NGO activist Lizi Sagie, recently hired by B'Tselem, using Nazi rhetoric and anti-Israel demonization, are incongruous with the mission of a human rights organization, according to Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor.
Sagie's statements, published by Yonatan D. HaLevi and in the Israeli media, include (translations by NGO Monitor):
- "The IDF Memorial Day is a pornographic circus of glorifying grief and silencing voices."
- "Israel is committing Humanity's worst atrocities... Israel is proving its devotion to Nazi values... Israel exploits the Holocaust to reap international benefits."
- "We don't erect gas chambers and extermination camps, but if there were any, how many people would actually resist it, and not only in their hearts?"
"This is another example of the immorality and ideological extremism among some who exploit the rhetoric of human rights and strip these principles of any value," said Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "Many NGOs activists, who claim to represent Israeli 'civil society' but are funded by European Commission, New Israel Fund, and individual European governments, are responsible for highly uncivil behavior."
Sagie, currently B'Tselem's data coordination director, co-authored a March 2010 report for Israeli-Arab NGO Mossawa labeling the current Knesset as "the most racist in history," and organized a rally against the "Nakba bill." Sagie is also a Machsom Watch activist; a member of New Profile, where she "works to change the militarization of society, supporting persons who have refused military service"; and, according to NIF-Israel, a volunteer with Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP)...
According to the article at ShalomLife, B'Tselem Director Shocked at Senior Member's Extreme Blog, Sagi posted this type of material before becoming a B'Tselem employee, but that's sort of beside the point. It's illustrative of a general problem that someone like Sagi finds themselves in an influential position within the NGO establishment. Her background statements were only a flaw when exposed to the public, before that they were a feature.
Goes will with JIDF's New Israel Fund expose: NIF Staffer Accuses Israel Of State Terrorism
Ben Murane, the New York based "New Generations and Development Associate" for the controversial New Israel Fund, has accused Israel of state terrorism, according to a report from the Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF), a nationalist organization that monitors social media for anti-Semitism and terrorist activity.
In a posting on the organization's website, the JIDF quoted Murane, who goes by the handle kungfujew18, as saying that Israel is responsible for civilian deaths when Hamas uses non-combatants as human shields.
"When civilians die, Israel is just at fault as Hamas," wrote Murane. "Israel chose to accept civilian deaths as collateral. Worse, Israel is counting on civilian suffering to loosen the power of Hamas."
The New Israel Fund staffer accused Israel of "stooping to terrorism" in its fight against Hamas...
..."This post had one sentence struck due to its ease in misrepresenting me and my opinions," explained Murane. "I aim to speak my mind, but not provide slander for others to claim that I put the IDF and Hamas on equal footing. That is not my opinion and never in anything I said have I done so."...
The JIDF also criticized Murane for claiming that "Spreading belief in a 'global jihad' is the same as spreading belief in the Elders of Zion," a Czarist forgery that accused a secretive cabal of Jewish elders of plotting to take over the world.
