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Manipulating the Marketplace of Ideas

(Ha'aretz) Gerald M. Steinberg - For over a decade, European governments have been major sources of funding for dozens of Israeli and Palestinian organizations claiming to promote human rights and similar moral causes, when in fact their agendas are more political than moral. This often hidden support helps pay for expensive newspaper advertisements; the salaries of lawyers involved in dozens of High Court cases about the security barrier, treatment of Palestinian terrorists, etc.; and a flood of statements submitted to the UN condemning Israeli policies. Recipient NGOs have a major influence on many issues in our lives, and on the decisions of our democratically elected government. The nature and scale of European influence is unique - in no other case do democratic countries use taxpayer money to support opposition groups in other democracies. Imagine the French response to U.S. government financing for promoting Corsican separatists under the guise of human rights. Would Spain tolerate foreign government funding of NGO campaigns involving the violent Basque conflict? But here, as in other areas, Israel is singled out and subject to different rules. Taken together, the large sums provided to NGOS by European governments through secret processes constitute a major effort to manipulate the Israeli marketplace of ideas. This is inherently colonialistic, undermining the goals of Zionism and Jewish sovereign equality. Prof. Gerald Steinberg, of the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University, is executive director of NGO Monitor.
2009-11-27 08:41:57
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