The Not So Civil Society

NGO’s, the last voice of opposition in Israel, are now under threat from anti-democratic laws

Last year saw a new front opened up in what has been described as Israel’s democratic recession. This time, it was the country’s proliferation of left-leaning non- governmental organisations that came under attack from legislation that would see such non-profits sharply curbed by limits placed on their foreign funding. Amid proposed bills that would limit the independence of the Supreme Court, ban calls to boycott goods produced in Israel or the settlements and penalise those who taught that Israel’s birth in 1948 was a ‘nakba’ or catastrophe, the danger to dovish non-profits came as a new blow to what remained of the Israeli left. Some of those particularly targeted for criticism included the New Israel Fund, B’tselem, Adalah, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. The willingness of governments — mainly in Europe and northern America — to assist and grant funding to such Israeli organisations dedicated to human rights, civil society and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has given the right another opportunity to accuse these groups of disloyalty to the state. It has also opened up fresh ways to legislate against the funding of left-wing NGOs. The original proposals to limit NGO backing have somewhat run aground amidst the controversy, but fresh ones have been put forward in their wake. These new bills would prevent governments from donating to NGOs that support, for example, Israeli officials in international courts or encourage refusal to serve in the army, while other foreign donations to NGOs would be taxed at 45% unless the non-profit was already part-funded by the government or exempted by the finance ministry. Read more

Dispatches

The Big Cheese

The wild, top-hat-and-jeans-clad compére jumped onto the stage to announce the 20 semi-finalists of the second annual New York Cheesemonger Invitational. The crowd roared approval at those über-mongers who could detect age, nationality, name and bloom. For this, the third of four rounds, each contestant was to cut two 1/4 pound chunks of cheese and wrap each in cheese paper in under a minute. To mad applause, the first woman cheesemonger took to the stage. The clock began to tick. She estimated and sliced cheese amounts, posed triumphantly for the audience when her scale read 0.27lbs and began to wrap vigorously.

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Delegitimising the Delegitimisers

I first recall hearing the term ‘delegitimisation’ applied to Israel six or seven years ago at a rather turgid conference in Brussels, when Nathan Sharansky presented it as part of his 3D test for unfair criticism of Israel. The way you could detect this ‘new antisemitism’, he said, was if the critic was applying double standards to Israel, demonising the state, or delegitimising its very existence. Cute and tricksy, I thought at the time. But it seems to be a concept which has now come into its own. Delegitimisation has become the catchword of defenders of Israel, a new battle-cry in the fight to defend the Jewish state — and, if some are to be believed, one which presents an existential threat to its existence. Read more

Debating the Debate

‘Anglo-Jewry finds its voice’, trumpeted the front page of the Jewish Chronicle during the harrowing days of the Gaza bombardment.

What voice exactly was this? What was it saying? More importantly, for whom was it speaking?

If the tangible feelings of dismay, paralysis and incredulity around me were anything to go by, whole swathes of Anglo-Jewry were left unspoken for.

Urgently, it seemed, a platform was needed for those unheard voices. The following is a transcript of the first conversation organised by the JQ to establish what these voices might be saying. What are the issues? How might they be broached? How, as a community, might we manage these differences?

The conversation was chaired by Jonathan Boyd (acting director of Jewish Policy Research). The participants were Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg (Rabbi of New North London Syngogue), Douglas Krikler (Chief Executive of the UJIA), Paul Usiskin (Co-chair of Peace Now UK), Geoffrey Alderman, (Columnist, Professor of Politics & Contemporary History at the University of Buckingham) Kevin Sefton, (Limmud Trustee) Joseph Finlay (Musician, involved with Jewdas and the Moishe House), Keith Kahn-Harris (Sociologist, convenor of New Jewish Thought www.newjewishthought.org) and Daniella Peled (journalist and analyst who specialises on the Middle East).

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