BillIsrael is intriguing. We rarely hear about what goes on there, more often hearing about Palestine. What is interesting is the rise of the far right in that country, a phenemonon that the US and the West generally seldom speaks about. In this artice by Al Monitor we learn what is happening.
Shlomi Eldar April 30, 2018
Article Summary
The far-right Im Tirzu group is behind a hate campaign targeting the US-based New Israel Fund.
The far-right movement Im Tirzu began a smear campaign against the New Israel Fund last week. The timing offers further evidence of the pivotal role Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plays in fanning flames of hate in Israel.
On April 2, in response to pressure from the conservative right, Netanyahu went back on a deal with the UN he had announced just hours earlier for Israel to take in some of the illegal immigrants already in the country. A day later, to divert attention from criticism of his zigzagging, he took the same tactic he generally uses to extricate himself from trouble: blaming either the Arabs or liberals. This time, he accused the New Israel Fund, a US-based nonprofit dedicated to social justice and equality, of foiling an agreement with African states to accept asylum-seekers that Israel deports. The organization, he explained, was responsible for Rwanda's decision to withdraw from a previous agreement on the matter and therefore it "jeopardizes the security and future of the State of Israel as the country of the Jewish people."
Now, not a month later, Im Tirzu has put billboards up throughout Tel Aviv to inform all those who haven't gotten the prime minister’s message that the people of the New Israel fund are traitors. The billboards feature illustrations of an Israeli soldier with the caption, “Yotam Zilber, a paratrooper fighter,” and one of the fund's president, Talia Sasson, captioned, “New Israel Fund is fighting against Yotam.” The message is clear: Zilber is one of us. Sasson is not. A computer game asks players to help Zilber escape from the left-wing organizations leading him into the hands of Palestinian terrorists.
Rami Hod of the Berl Katznelson Fund and Michael Manekin of the Partnership Fund for Israel’s Future have lodged a complaint with police accusing Im Tirzu of incitement. “Im Tirzu is a front organization for Netanyahu serving as the sewage pipe through which anti-Semitic campaigns are funneled from Europe to Israel. The blood that will be spilled here will be on their hands and the hand of their sender,” the complainants said. Im Tirzu Chair Matan Peleg said in response, “Im Tirzu will continue to unmask the real face of those striving for the State of Israel’s disintegration from within.”
Im Tirzu was established after the 2006 Second Lebanon War by Hebrew University students Ronen Shoval and Erez Tadmor, members of the Young Leadership Program of the Institute for Zionist Strategies founded by right-wing ideologue and pundit Israel Harel. Peleg, who opened the group’s Haifa branch and served as its national projects director under Tadmor and Shoval, now heads Im Tirzu. Peleg was responsible for a previous controversial campaign in December 2015 that portrayed the heads of Israeli human rights organizations as seeking to undermine the existence of the state, labeling them “moles” or “foreign agents." Several weeks later, he was forced to apologize and suspend himself for three months in light of the storm he generated by broadening his circle of “traitors” to include cultural icons. Since then, Im Tirzu has dropped off the radar but continued to raise funds and mobilize supporters, waiting for the right time to strike.
Im Tirzu claims it attacks Israeli human rights and liberal organizations for accepting funds from abroad and thus serving as tools for foreign groups to influence Israeli policy. But according to a 2013 report by Haaretz, most of its activity is funded by American foundations and organizations. The rest comes from small donations by Israeli sympathizers. The movement’s Facebook page has more than 200,000 followers. A 2017 investigative report found that donations to Im Tirzu surged dramatically in recent years and its 2016 budget was 2.2 million shekels ($630,000).
The organization’s biggest donor is The Central Fund of Israel, established in New York by a textile company owner named Hadassah K. Marcus. Since her death in 2015, her son Jay Marcus has continued the enterprise begun by his mother, donating funds to organizations dedicated to strengthening Israel’s Jewish character. The fund donates handsomely to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and to extreme right-wing groups. In addition to Im Tirzu, other beneficiaries include the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, the Women in Green organization advocating the annexation of the West Bank to Israel, activities in the settlement of Itamar, the settlements of the Etzion Bloc and Honenu, an organization that provides legal aid for Jews suspected of hate crimes against Arabs.
Another registered Im Tirzu donor is a US nonprofit called Shining City, which Haaretz claims is run by wealthy Netanyahu associates. Yet another contributor is an organization called “Americans for Jerusalem,” registered at the same address as the philanthropic fund of American billionaire and former Netanyahu associate Ron Lauder.
The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper revealed in May 2017 that the Central Bottling Plant, Israel’s Coca-Cola franchise, gave Im Tirzu 50,000 shekels ($14,300). The organization reportedly tried to conceal the contribution from the NGO registrar.
Asked about the fact that most of the organization’s funds originate abroad, which is Im Tirzu’s main beef with other Israeli organizations, Peleg replied, “Unlike the funding of ‘mole’ organizations by foreign states, the purpose of which is to dismantle Israel’s Zionist identity, a donation to us is a donation for the promotion of Zionism.” And with pockets full of foreign donations, in amazing coordination with Netanyahu’s bashing of the New Israel Fund, Im Tirzu did what it does best, spreading vitriol, hatred and incitement around town.