The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Ministry is scheduled to hold a special meeting devoted to ties between the New Israel Fund and dozens of Israeli NGOs that provided almost all of the incriminating materials used against Israel in the infamous UN-sponsored Goldstone Report.
The connection between the New Israel Fund and the Goldstone Report was published in the mainstream Israeli media, and the committee meeting was initiated by MK Yisrael Hasson (Kadima). "An inquiry must be conducted into the issue of these organizations' activities, which promote issuing arrest orders against army officers and contribute toward activity that supports Hamas," said Hasson.
A number of Knesset members have demanded that the government sever all ties it and the various ministries have with the New Israel Fund, especially in the area of education through the Education Ministry. The possibility of addressing the issue through legislative means is also being reviewed.
According to a report prepared by Im Tirtzu, 92 percent of the negative testimonies cited in the Goldstone Report and originating in Israel were provided by organizations that receive financial support from the New Israel Fund.
Im Tirtzu and its founder, Ronen Shoval, a young high-tech worker from Raanana who describes himself as secular, conducted an in-depth study to determine who assisted Judge Richard Goldstone to create the underpinnings for his distorted report, based on Israeli sources.
The results came as little surprise: the vast majority of the Israelis sources on which the report is based and which were supposed to lend it credibility, were Israeli organizations directly supported by the New Israel Fund.
The New Israel Fund is registered in the US, but operates in Eretz Yisroel in a number of areas, including extensive assistance for Reform and Conservative organizations as well as pro-Arab human rights organizations. It defines itself as a "central, non-parliamentary movement" working toward "the strengthening and rejuvenation of Zionist values in Israel, and providing a solution to deal with post-Zionism and anti-Zionism in Israeli society."
The umbrella group supports hundreds of Israeli organizations. Since launching operations in Israel it has handed out over half a billion shekels. According to columnist B. Caspit, Im Tirtzu found that the New Israel Fund backs a substantial portion of the budget of organizations that provided the Goldstone Commission material it used to make its serious accusations against the IDF. The report has 1,208 footnotes containing 1,377 citations. Nearly half of the quotes appearing in the report came from organizations supported by the New Israel Fund. An even more shocking figure is that if negative quotes denigrating the IDF and its commanders are examined separately, 92 percent of those remarks came from these organizations.
In simple terms, it might be said that the New Israel Fund indirectly supported the Goldstone Report and the organizations it funds provided the commission with most of the information from the Israeli side that it relied on to falsely incriminate the Israeli army.
