[News] Why NGO Monitor is attacking The Electronic Intifada

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Why NGO Monitor is attacking The Electronic Intifada


Report, The Electronic Intifada, 30 November 2010
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11651.shtml

NGO Monitor's campaign of public defamation against The Electronic 
Intifada focuses on support the publication receives from a Dutch foundation.

NGO Monitor has launched a campaign targeting a Dutch foundation's 
financial support to The Electronic Intifada, accusing the 
publication among other things of "anti-Semitism." NGO Monitor is an 
extreme right-wing group with close ties to the Israeli government, 
military, West Bank settlers, a man convicted of misleading the US 
Congress, and to notoriously Islamophobic individuals and 
organizations in the United States.

NGO Monitor's campaign of public defamation against The Electronic 
Intifada has focused on a grant the publication receives from the 
Dutch foundation ICCO. NGO Monitor has pressured the Dutch 
government, which subsidizes ICCO, to end its support for The 
Electronic Intifada. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal has 
apparently already lent public credence to NGO Monitor's campaign 
against The Electronic Intifada, an independent publication 
established in February 2001 and read by thousands daily.

NGO Monitor's attack on The Electronic Intifada is part of a 
well-financed, Israeli-government endorsed effort to silence 
reporting about and criticism of Israel by attacking so-called 
"delegitimizers" -- those who speak about well-documented human 
rights abuses, support boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), or 
promote full equality for Palestinians. Last February, The Electronic 
Intifada reported that a leading Israeli think-tank had recommended a 
campaign of "sabotage" against Israel's critics as a matter of state 
policy 
("<http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11080.shtml>Israel's new 
strategy: "sabotage" and "attack" the global justice movement," 16 
February 2010).

NGO Monitor has already been at the forefront of a campaign to crush 
internal dissent by Jewish groups in Israel that want to see Israel's 
human rights record improved.

The Jerusalem-based organization poses as a project concerned with 
accountability for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), but as 
Israeli human rights activist and journalist Didi Remez has stated, 
"NGO Monitor is not an objective watchdog: It is a partisan operation 
that suppresses its perceived ideological adversaries through the 
sophisticated use of McCarthyite techniques -- blacklisting, guilt by 
association and selective filtering of facts" 
("<http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/bring-on-the-transparency-1.3326>Bring 
on the transparency," Haaretz, 26 November 2009).

In a 6 November article in The Jerusalem Post, NGO Monitor president 
Gerald Steinberg revealed that his group was part of a new "Israel 
Action Network" established by the Jewish Federations of North 
America (JFNA) and the Jewish Council of Public Affairs (JCPA) 
("<http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=194275>Turning 
the tables on BDS," The Jerusalem Post, 6 November 2010).

The JFNA is funding the Israel Action Network to the tune of $6 
million over the next three years to target "delegitimization," which 
according to JFNA president Jerry Silverman, "Israeli leaders 
identify ... as the second most dangerous threat to Israel, after 
Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons 
("<http://jta.org/news/article/2010/10/25/2741418/jfna-and-jcpa-create-6-million-network-to-fight-delegitimization-of-israel>Federations, 
JCPA teaming to fight delegitimization of Israel," JTA, 24 October 2010).

NGO Monitor's and the Israel Action Network's goals appear to be 
nothing less than to shut down independent media such as The 
Electronic Intifada, as well as human rights advocacy groups in 
Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and around the world. 
In his 6 November article, Steinberg specifically named The 
Electronic Intifada and its co-founder and executive director Ali 
Abunimah, as well as Sabeel, the Palestinian Christian ecumenical 
justice and peace movement, and its founder Reverend Naim Ateek, as 
targets of the campaign.

Steinberg explained, "To emerge victorious in this political war, the 
[Israel Action] network must be armed with detailed information about 
the opposition, and implement an effective counter strategy on this 
basis. This involves distributing information to college students and 
active community members, so they can name and shame the groups that 
lead and fund demonization."

Steinberg goes on to boast, "NGO Monitor has demonstrated that this 
approach can be very effective. Based on detailed research, the 
government of Canada cut funding ostensibly provided for human rights 
and development, but which was actually used for hatred and 
incitement. Similar discussions are under way in European governments 
regarding funding for some of the more poisonous NGOs involved in BDS."

In becoming the latest target of NGO Monitor's defamation and 
sabotage efforts, The Electronic Intifada joins previously targeted 
organizations including Amnesty International, Doctors Without 
Borders, Human Rights Watch, Adalah, Al-Haq, Mada al-Carmel as well 
as Israeli groups such as B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, HaMoked and 
New Israel Fund, among dozens of others.

NGO Monitor -- as a glance at its publications reveals -- 
characterizes any documentation of, or call for an end to Israel's 
systematic human rights abuses, violent colonization of the occupied 
West Bank including Jerusalem, or its siege and amply documented war 
crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza as "hate," "incitement" 
and/or "anti-Semitism."

Attacking funding to undermine free speech and thought

In 2007, NGO Monitor began targeting the Canadian international 
development and human rights organization Alternatives which did 
development work in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. After a 
determined campaign by pro-Israel advocates, Canada's Conservative 
government cut funding to Alternatives and several other groups that 
worked on Palestinian rights 
("<http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11102.shtml>Canada's 
neoconservative turn," The Electronic Intifada, 26 February 2010).

Earlier this year, Canada's government-supported International 
Development Research Centre canceled research grants to Mada 
al-Carmel -- an independent research center in Haifa, the only one of 
its kind in Israel, which focuses on the rights, needs and future of 
Palestinian citizens. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the 
grants which were for research on "Arab political participation in 
Israel and the future of Israeli democracy," and "Palestinian women 
in Israel and the political economy" may have been canceled under 
pressure applied by the Israeli foreign ministry on the Canadian 
government 
("<http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/did-foreign-ministry-lobby-to-stop-canadian-funding-of-israeli-arab-group-1.308879>Did 
Foreign Ministry lobby to stop Canadian funding of Israeli Arab 
group?," Haaretz, 19 August 2010).

Turning the fire on The Electronic Intifada

On 26 November, The Jerusalem Post published an article by Benjamin 
Weinthal headlined 
"<http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=196852>Dutch 
will look into NGO funding of anti-Semitic website."

According to Weinthal, "The Dutch government has been funding the 
Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation [ICCO], a Dutch 
aid organization that finances the Electronic Intifada website that, 
NGO Monitor told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, is anti-Semitic and 
frequently compares Israeli policies with those of the Nazi regime."

However, The Post does not cite any specific examples from almost 
12,000 articles published by The Electronic Intifada since 2001 to 
substantiate these lurid accusations.

With its reporting and independent commentary, The Electronic 
Intifada has built a global reputation since its founding, and states 
on its <http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1387.shtml>website 
that "our views on the conflict are based firmly on universal 
principles of international law and human rights conventions, and our 
reporting is built on a solid foundation of documented evidence and 
careful fact-checking."

The Post quotes Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal stating, "I will 
look into the matter personally. If it appears that the 
government-subsidized NGO ICCO does fund Electronic Intifada, it will 
have a serious problem with me."

If the quotation from Foreign Minister Rosenthal is accurate (which 
cannot be taken for granted given the errors and false statements 
throughout Weinthal's article), it should be noted that The 
Electronic Intifada was never contacted by the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs of the Netherlands before the minister apparently went on the 
record lending support to the allegations made by NGO Monitor.

The Jerusalem Post also charges that "EI executive director Ali 
Abunimah is a leader in delegitimization and demonization campaigns 
against Israel. In his travels and speaking engagements, facilitated 
by Electronic Intifada's budget, he calls for a one-state solution to 
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and routinely uses false apartheid rhetoric."

The Jerusalem Post never attempted to contact The Electronic Intifada 
or Abunimah to verify any of these claims. Had it done so, it would 
have been informed that none of Abunimah's speaking engagements or 
travel has ever been funded by The Electronic Intifada's budget, but 
all such engagements are paid for by the groups hosting the events 
which are organized and handled entirely separately from the publication.

Since 2006, about one-third of The Electronic Intifada's funding has 
come from ICCO. The majority of the publication's funding has come 
from direct donations from readers, and another small part from other 
private foundations. The Electronic Intifada has never received funds 
from any government. The Electronic Intifada's total expenses 
amounted to $149,208 in 2008 and $183,760 in 2009, as reported on the 
publicly available Form 990 filed annually with the US Internal 
Revenue Service by the Middle East Cultural and Charitable Society, 
Inc., the nonprofit organization of which The Electronic Intifada is 
a program service.

NGO Monitor, Israel's government, military and the far-right

NGO Monitor is closely tied to Israel's far-right, its government and 
military as well as leading anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim 
activists in the United States.

NGO Monitor states on its website that it is "a joint venture of the 
Institute for Contemporary Affairs, founded jointly with the Wechsler 
Family Foundation, and B'nai B'rith International."

As The Electronic Intifada reported in 2005, the Institute of 
Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center on Public Affairs is a 
think-tank providing a home for Israel's military and political 
elite. Among the panoply of Israeli officers who speak and write for 
the Institute is Doron Almog, who notoriously chose to remain on 
board an El Al aircraft at London's Heathrow airport and flee back to 
Israel rather than face a pending arrest warrant for alleged war 
crimes while he was a division commander in the occupied Gaza Strip 
("<http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4255.shtml>NGO Monitor 
should not be taken seriously," 18 October 2005).

Among NGO Monitor's International Advisory Board are some unusual 
choices for an organization focused on accountability. In addition to 
Alan Dershowitz and Elie Wiesel (who has gone on record saying he can 
never criticize Israel), there is former CIA chief and pro-Iraq-war 
activist James Woolsey, and Elliott Abrams. Abrams was convicted in 
1991 of withholding information from the United States Congress in 
the Iran-Contra affair in which he was deeply involved as an official 
in the Reagan administration. As deputy national security advisor 
during the administration of George W. Bush, Abrams was the architect 
of covert US policies intended to overturn the January 2006 
Palestinian legislative elections by arming Palestinian militias 
opposed to Hamas, which had won the vote. Abrams' policies led to a 
Palestinian civil war that cost hundreds of lives (David Rose, 
"<http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804>The 
Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008).

NGO Monitor's "Legal Advisory Board" includes former Israeli 
ambassador Alan Baker, who as an Israeli government official spent 
years publicly defending Israel's violations of international law, 
including its settlements in occupied territory, which are nominally 
opposed by all EU governments, including the Netherlands.

Cementing the link even more closely, NGO Monitor recently published 
a joint report with its partner the Institute for Zionist Strategies 
entitled 
"<http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/trojan_horse_the_impact_of_european_government_funding_for_israeli_ngos>Trojan 
Horse: The Impact of European Government Funding for Israeli NGOs." 
The Institute for Zionist Strategies, as Didi Remez has pointed out, 
is led by Israel Harel, a founder of the fanatical Gush Emunim 
settler movement.

Calling for "accountability" but only for others

While NGO Monitor is increasingly frank that its goal is to shut down 
open discussion of Israel's human rights abuses, it claims that it 
exists to promote "accountability" and transparency. But this 
transparency does not extend to itself or its political allies.

Some information is available about NGO Monitor's funding, but the 
organization does not release the names of all its donors nor the 
amounts they gave -- even as it insists that others should do so. In 
addition to the Wechsler Foundation, NGO Monitor lists among its 
"<http://www.ngo-monitor.org/articles.php?cat_id=17>major donors," 
Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum Education Project. Pipes has been 
widely criticized for purveying anti-Muslim and anti-Arab propaganda, 
including by United States Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) who opposed 
Pipes' 2003 appointment by President George W. Bush to the board of 
the United States Institute for Peace 
("<http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/jul03_pipes-stalled.html>Daniel 
Pipes nomination stalled in committee," The Baltimore Chronicle, 23 July 2003).

NGO Monitor also lists a US tax-exempt organization called 
<http://www.afngom.org/>American Friends of NGO Monitor (AFNGOM) 
among its "major donors." While AFNGOM received its recognition as a 
tax-exempt non-profit in early 2009, there was -- as of late 2010 -- 
still no legally-required, public Form 990 for 2009 available for the 
group on the Guidestar.org website, the information clearinghouse for 
US non-profits (According to 
<http://www2.guidestar.org/rxg/help/faqs/form-990/index.aspx#faq1948>Guidestar, 
a 990 should appear on its website approximately two months after being filed).

Among AFNGOM's board members is Rita Emerson. Emerson and her husband 
Steven Emerson are prominent in the US pro-Israel, anti-Muslim 
community and often make donations to pro-Israel causes. They jointly 
fund the "Emerson Fellowships" for the anti-Palestinian advocacy 
group Stand With Us (which works closely with the Israeli military to 
organize speaking tours for Israeli soldiers on North American 
college campuses) and are both substantial donors to the Technion 
Israel Institute of Technology. "Their most passionate concerns 
include cancer research, the defense of Israel on campus and in the 
media, and the struggle against the global Jihad," is how the couple 
was described in the program of a 2007 dinner for the American 
Freedom Alliance.

The Emersons have done very well financially from incitement against 
Muslims. A recent investigative report by The Tennessean newspaper 
found that in 2008 Steven Emerson paid his own for-profit company 
$3.4 million in fees from a non-profit charity he founded, which, 
according to the newspaper "solicits money by telling donors they're 
in imminent danger from Muslims." According to The Tennessean, 
Emerson's non-profit effectively acts as a front for a lucrative 
for-profit venture 
("<http://www.tennessean.com/article/20101024/NEWS01/10240374/Anti-Muslim-crusaders-make-millions-spreading-fear>Anti-Muslim 
crusaders make millions spreading fear," The Tennessean, 24 October 
2010). Unusually, the non-profit's 
<http://www.tennessean.com/assets/pdf/DN1658731022.PDF>990 forms do 
not list any staff, board members or salaries except for Steven 
Emerson who is the organization's sole officer.

Yet a search of NGO Monitor's website found no page dedicated to 
exposing the lack of transparency of the Emersons' multimillion 
dollar "non-profit" business.

NGO Monitor evinces a similar lack of concern for transparency when 
it comes to extremist Israeli groups. As Didi Remez points out, 
"Hundreds of millions of dollars in Israeli taxpayer money and US tax 
exemptions, mostly hidden from public view, are the driving force of 
the settlement enterprise," including organizations such as Elad 
which are behind the current efforts of Israeli settlers to expel 
Palestinians from certain neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem 
("<http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/bring-on-the-transparency-1.3326>Bring 
on the transparency").

Remez notes that while most of the Israeli dissenting and human 
rights groups NGO Monitor targets already meet high standards of 
fiscal transparency, the settler groups do not. Settler groups, Remez 
observes, "depend on financial opacity for continued operations." NGO 
Monitor has never said a word about it.

With international movements in solidarity with Palestine -- 
including BDS -- gaining steam, Israel's leaders and apologists are 
becoming more desperate and unscrupulous than ever. Nothing 
illustrates this better than NGO Monitor attacking funding sources 
for media and human rights organizations like The Electronic Intifada 
and so many other groups doing urgently needed work.



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