www.humanrights.cn/en/UNHRC/W0200706304458645...
 
 

Who is demonizing who?

 By Ben-Dror Yemini

 The New Israel Fund is angry. It thinks it is okay to cooperate with the
 Goldstone commission, even though the commission was formed by an automatic
 majority of the benighted countries that control the UN Human Rights
 Council. It thinks it is ok to disseminate the resultant unsubstantial and
 unsubstantiated accusations against Israel. It thinks it is okay to take
 part in the demonization campaign being staged by certain of its NGOs. And
 it is absolutely legitimate, in a democratic country, to do all these
 things.
 But there is something else that is also legitimate: To reveal the truth
 about the fund and the groups that falsely claim to be human rights
 organizations. If some of the political organizations supported by the fund
 do not recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic
 state, don't cry human rights.
 Tell the truth: the denial of rights is to Jews only. The Palestinians have
 a right to a state of their own, as do the Croats, the Hungarians, the
 Czechs, the Slovaks and other nations - but not the Jews.
 The New Israel Fund supports, for example, the Zochrot organization. This is
 a nonprofit organization that openly strives to destroy Israel by means of
 the 3right of return.2 Not that there is any such right, and not that there
 ever was a precedent for a mass 3return2 after a population swap in the wake
of war - but this does not bother the New Israel Fund. It will always jump
 in under the slogan of human rights.
 This doesn't mean Israel is exempt from criticism. After all, out of the
 hundreds of allegations, there are a few of substance. But if many sane
people are coming to loathe the human rights organizations, it's not because
 they loathe human rights. Just the opposite! It's because the sane majority
 is fed up with 'human rights' becoming the weapon of benighted forces.
There are a million and one offenses to human lives and human rights in the
 world. Israel, as a state in conflict, offends less than all others. This is
 backed up by numbers. Yet Israel is the one taking the brunt of the
 criticism. This is called demonization, delegitimisation and obsession. So
 the attacks on Israel are not in defense of human rights, but rather an
 orchestrated campaign in the service of Iran and Hamas.
 
 HOW IS it that many, mainly Jews, support the New Israel Fund? How is it
 that they enable this systematic campaign that pretends to be humane? They
 are not anti-Semites. They are people with good intentions. After all, the
 rhetoric is about human rights and minorities. Jews are sensitive to that.
 And it's good that they are. Most of them simply don't know. Most of them
 sincerely and truly want for Israel to be more enlightened and advanced,
 while being stricter about human lives and human rights.
 But they do not know that some of the money goes to other goals.
 Prof. Naomi Chazan, who heads the NIF, is not a hater of Israel. But what
 happened to the fund is exactly what has happened to innumerable
 organizations that deal with the discourse of rights.
 Human rights organizations can earn back our trust. They must genuinely
 support human rights, not organizations that work to deny Israel's right to
 exist.
 
 The writer is an Israeli journalist and a regular columnist at Maariv, where
 an earlier version of this article originally appeared.

 

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