NGO Monitor in the News

15 November 2005

NGO Monitor was cited in media reports from across the political spectrum in the past month. The New York Jewish Week, in an article called "Christian Capital" quoted NGO Monitor reports on Sabeel’s role in the campaign to divest from Israel. The article mentioned Sabeel’s recent conference in Chicago where “speakers made allegations of ethnic cleansing against Israel and of employing chemical weapons against Palestinian civilians. The conference served as a platform to promote divestment from Israel, the NGO Monitor noted.”

Other NGO Monitor reports were referenced in a Frontpagemagazine.com article criticizing Norman Finkelstein’s new book ("Finkelstein’s Fan in Israel"). The article notes that “Finkelstein, in trying to pillory Israel for alleged violations, relies on human rights NGOs like Physicians for Human Rights Israel, whose 'crude propaganda,' wrote Israeli professor Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor, 'is seen by many as anti-Semitic, and has prompted the Israeli Medical Association to end all cooperation with this group.'"

The academic journal Israel Affairs, (“Tenured Radicals in Israel: From New Zionism to Political Activism,” Oct. 2005) quoted several NGO Monitor reports in its article on political radicals in Israeli universities. The article mentions “BADIL, which, according to the NGO Monitor, leads a 'Palestinian campaign for the "right of return."'

The same article also refers to the role of radical Israelis in promoting the AUT boycott of Israel, particularly as part of the Palestinian Non-Government Organization Network (PNGO) "which the NGO Monitor accused of having links to extreme Palestinian groups that routinely defame Israel."

The pro-Palestinian internet flagship, Electronic Intifada, reflected the seriousness of NGO Monitor’s analysis by publishing a detailed attack on its website called "NGO Monitor should not be taken seriously". The article criticizes NGO Monitor for reporting on “some of the most established and respected human rights organizations…including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Ford Foundation, and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions,” and suggests NGO Monitor concern itself with “truly extremist organizations like the Jewish National Fund (JNF) … the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)…and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.”

Finally, ICAHD director Jeff Halper inveighed against NGO Monitor’s impact in Counterpunch ("Israel as an Extension of American Empire"). After erroneously referring to NGO Monitor as “an off-shoot of the NGO Watch,” operated by the American Enterprise Institute – which has absolutely no connection to NGO Monitor – Halper attacks NGO Monitor for seeking accountability in “human rights” NGOs. "NGO Monitor targets such organizations as the Ford Foundation ... Christian Aid, ICAHD, B'tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, together with all Israeli NGOs favoring 'peace' (including the mild New Israeli Fund) and, virtually by definition, all Palestinian NGOs. …”

NGO Monitor notes that our mission statement is to provide transparency through fact and source-based analysis of NGOs that are active in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, none of these attacks claim to have found any errors in NGO Monitor's detailed reports, and reflect exclusively the authors' political biases and agendas.