Friday, November 27, 2009
How about Cold Wars, where one country funds "NGO's" to undermine the other (and is it an NGO if they take government funding)? Do the Europeans even do this to countries like Iran, for instance? Gerald Steinberg takes on the idea of European funding for "Israeli" anti-Israel NGO's: Manipulating the marketplace of ideas
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. While these groups are known as "nongovernmental organizations," or NGOs, they are, in fact, selected and nurtured by foreign governments. And as seen in research to be discussed in a Knesset conference on December 1, their agendas are more political than moral.
This often hidden support helps pay for expensive newspaper advertisements, such as those recently announcing B'Tselem's 20th anniversary; the salaries of lawyers involved in dozens of High Court cases about the security barrier, treatment of Palestinian terrorists, etc.; the Geneva Initiative's conferences and booklets; and a flood of statements submitted to the United Nations condemning Israeli policies. Recipient NGOs have a major influence on many issues in our lives, and on the decisions of our democratically elected government.
Although foreign funding for Israeli NGOs is labeled as support for "civil society," this is false advertising. Organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B'Tselem, Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, and many more, cannot claim to be rooted in Israeli civil society when they are funded both directly by the Swedish government, and indirectly through budgets provided by the same government to the Diakonia church organization. This process is repeated by another 15 governments (including Norway and Switzerland), as well as the European Commission, which between them fund more than 50 similar organizations.
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 radical NGO anti-abortion campaigns in Paris, or 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...
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, p.30
A lot of people don't seem to understand that when it comes the Jews international protocol doesn't count.
I think that, aside from the military war of attrition against Hamas, Hizbollah, et al, Israel is in a war against its haters in the world, most importantly the Western world.
It's not a military war, obviously. And it's not a Cold War, which would imply the mixed use of diplomacy, propaganda, nuclear deterrence, espionage, and wars by proxies to further military and ideological goals.
It's what I would call a "Soft War," because it involves soft power, i.e., power that comes from the prestige, influence, and sheer presence that a country has in the world. This also involves the affection, sympathy or empathy the world feels for that country and its people, as well as admiration for that country's culture and institutions.
Israel is losing that war right now, in part because it has a hard, complicated case to make in a world that seems no longer willing or able to understand it. And Israel's situation is made worse by the fact that the Arabs have vast sums of money and oil, plus the moral high ground as a Third World people.
Arabist traditions in some European countries, genuine belief in the Palestinian narrative, and national interests all weigh in on the side of the Palestinians.
Moreover, Israel's enemies in the Soft War are extremely powerful, and the fact that they're not declared "enemies" makes the fight against them all the trickier. The BBC and the Guardian in Britain, as well as Le Monde and France2 in France, are examples.
The world media as a whole is largely unfriendly territory for Israel. However, I'm especially nervous about the major British and French media outlets, because they reach vast numbers of anglophone and francophone people around the world. Think of the BBC World Service.
The diplomatic corps of various countries, academia, and parts of the business community, are also terrains on which the Soft War is being fought, and won, by the Arabs.
This is a tricky war to fight, because Israel's enemies are seen by many as highly honorable, even venerable. And these unfriendly organizations serve as judge and jury. For both those reasons, Israel cannot meet them on equal terms. Nor can it meet them head-on, at least not easily.
Fighting the Soft War is tough, but essential. And Israel does not seem to have the skills or resources to do it. Israel may succeed in securing itself militarily, but the rug will be pulled out from under it if it loses in this "soft" domain.
The trouble for Israel is that the Europeans may respect soft power, but their more immediate neighbors (the enemies who actually shoot at them) do not, and that creates a very difficult tightrope to walk, made more difficult by Europe's lack of understanding that not all the world is as "highly evolved" as they are.
When it comes down to brass tacks, it's all about Israel having the means to defend itself and punish attackers.
All the "jaw boning", lengthy analysis, quilt sewing, doesn't make a bit of difference to people who hate Israel, Jews, etc.
The MOST important thing is that the Israelis are NOT the unarmed Jews of WW2 europe.
Jews were hated BEFORE 1948.
It's better that Jews are hated because they are harder to kill, and can kill their attackers.
Jews are not obligated to be eternal victims.
Israelis are now masters of their own destiny.
london is bombed, british reporters are kidnapped, and the british STILL hate Israel.
I would NEVER want the US to lower itself to self-hating european levels.
Remember Pan Am 103.
http://www.boycottscotland.com