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[Excerpts:]

"Almost simultaneously with the launch of the Gaza military action, the self-appointed guardians of Israel’s reputation (but hardly of its probity or long-term interests) began castigating their well-worn ‘enemies list.’ Gerald Steinberg of the NGO Monitor’s op-ed in these pages, just after the beginning of the aerial bombardment of Gaza ("Can Israel win the ‘soft power’ war in Gaza?" December 29), is symptomatic. He places the blame for international criticism of the offensive on the human rights community here and abroad. His analysis would be comic in its predictability if his disinformation weren’t so dangerous to core Israeli values. The premise of Steinberg’s analysis is that morality is the sole property of Jewish Israelis who support government policy. Those who refuse to acknowledge this fact are disloyal apologists, detached do-gooders or instruments of Palestinian propaganda. He cannot – or does not want to – see the intricacies of the Gaza military engagement or acknowledge the complexities it poses for those disturbed by the civilian casualties on both sides and horrified by the latest victims it has claimed." "Steinberg and others of his ilk clearly would have it otherwise. He – unlike the police, which has scrupulously safeguarded the right to freedom of speech – would like the Israeli family of human rights organizations, as well as international groups, to go dumb in the face of controversial decisions by the government. That’s just not going to happen. Perhaps one could give a little more credence to his prescriptions if he could name one – just one – example where he believes that a human rights organization’s criticism was valid. Steinberg and NGO Monitor, however, insist on going further. As part of an orchestrated campaign against those who do not conform with their version of ‘politically correct,’ they lash out against the funders of key organizations in Israeli civil society – and most notably the New Israel Fund (NIF). In his assault on those who question the prudence of the Gaza offensive, Steinberg also stoops to misinformation and disseminates false facts. He claims that the European Community office in Washington gives NIF in New York hundreds of thousands of dollars, and calls this ‘an unorthodox practice.’"