Digest Vol.4 No.5 - 17 January 2006:
Additional Items of Interest
Click here
for printer friendly version
-
”There has been
a steady outflow of pro-Palestinian NGO personnel from the
Strip, some out of panic, some from a realization that the
Palestinian revolution, so called, is animated by bloodlust.
According to The Times of London, one British aid worker who
was recently held hostage by gunmen for three days told her
kidnappers, ‘I came to work with these people and I
feel like I've been stabbed in the back.’ Is this the
future of Palestine?”
Martin Peretz, “Mayhem
in Gaza and the Future of Palestine: Warning Shots”,
The New Republic, January 3, 2006
-
“Non-governmental
organizations that justify their campaigns on the basis of
moral claims have adopted this false morality. Amnesty International,
which was founded during the Cold War to press tyrannical
regimes to release political prisoners, has lost its way entirely.”
Gerald
Steinberg, “Understanding when weakness is not a virtue”,
The Jerusalem Post, January 1, 2006
-
“Normally, international
aid reaches the Palestinians directly, but also through myriad
international NGOs. … I found Ramallah was crawling
with do-gooders of all nationalities. Being kind to Palestinians
is now a big industry …The Palestinians are today the
largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.
According to the 2004 World Bank report, they are suffering
‘the worst economic depression in modern history’.”
Ghada Karmi, “With
no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation”,
The Guardian, December 31, 2005
-
As demonstrated by previous
NGO Monitor analyses (“Asleep
at the Wheel”, August 26, 2004), the NGO community
has given the situation in Sudan relatively
limited attention, compared to headline-generating areas.
In “A
failure of purpose”, which appeared in The Guardian
on January 3, 2006, Jeevan Vasagar asks whether well-meaning
western aid agencies are what Africa really needs. "Aid
work in Africa often seems to be a story of misunderstandings
and disappointments. What exactly are the NGOs trying to achieve?
If the purpose of aid work is to diminish poverty, the past
decade looks like a dramatic failure. … Ending poverty
appears to have little to do with overseas aid or the activities
of NGOs."
-
Gisha is
an NGO focusing on issues related to freedom of movement for
Palestinians. Their main tool in pursuing that goal is through
legal channels (such as petitioning Israel’s Supreme
Court), and in the process, downplay the context of terror.
The resulting implication is that Israel is imposing restrictions
on Palestinians without cause.
Past activities have included cooperation with other NGOs,
such as Physicians for Human Rights – Israel. According
to their website, they receive support from such sources as
the Foundation for Middle East Peace, the Robert L. Bernstein
Fellowship in International Human Rights at Yale Law School,
the New Israel Fund, the Dorot Fellowship and the Center for
the Legal Defence of the Individual (Jerusalem).
-
On December 27-30, Nonviolence International
and the Holy Land Trust held a conference
in Bethlehem entitled “Celebrating
Nonviolent Resistance”. The conference included
the involvement of such radical NGOs as Sabeel, ICAHD, ISM
and CPT. The conference also featured a speech by Ingrid Newkirk,
president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA),
who, according to reports, “did not shy away from directly
linking human and animal suffering, and said that ‘to
allow one form of violence to exist while asking for the eradication
of the other is painfully hypocritical.’ … ‘Every
day, millions of animals, who pledge allegiance to no flag,
and who have done nothing to provoke aggression, are the victims
of the longest running undeclared war in human history: the
war on the animal nations’."
|
|
|
