Gerald Steinberg 2 (2)Click here to read article in its entirety.

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Former Knesset member Dr. Einat Wilf was recently invited and then uninvited by the influential Israeli NGO Peace Now to participate in its annual “Conference of the Left” meeting. In attempting to justify the abrupt reversal, Yariv Oppenheimer, the organization’s head, blamed Wilf’s membership in the International Advisory Council of NGO Monitor. Wilf, who entered the Knesset in 2010 as a member of the Labor Party, replied, “If the Israeli Left has no place for those who support a two-state solution and who also wage battle against those who seek to delegitimize Israel, it will not return to lead the country.”

This example of political blacklisting highlights the self-destructive ideological purity and conformity that has come to characterize many “progressive, liberal” Zionist NGOs and their supporters. Instead of engaging on the substance of criticism offered by NGO Monitor, which points to the exploitation of liberal values in the political warfare against Israel, groups like Peace Now have worked overtime to silence the messengers.

In a one-dimensional “left vs. right” political world, there is no room for complex images that are presented by Einat Wilf, who entered the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party and promotes a two-state framework while denouncing the demonization campaigns. NGO Monitor, whose research played a central role in convincing Judge Goldstone to acknowledge the false foundation of his U.N. “report,” is attacked and defamed as a dangerous enemy.