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[Excerpts:]

"After being a target for political attacks during the past year, progressive nongovernmental organizations in Israel are now bracing for another hit: the loss of one of their largest donors. The Ford Foundation, which has provided $40 million to civil society NGOs in Israel since 2003, will not resume its funding for programs in Israel once its current grant round ends in two years." "The foundation’s decade-long partnership with NIF was fraught with criticism over its choice of grantees and causes, which were mostly on the liberal end of the political spectrum. This criticism peaked after the 2001 Durban conference, where NGOs, some of them funded by the Ford Foundation, backed resolutions equating Israeli policies with those of the South African apartheid regime. In response, the foundation adopted stricter criteria for funding, and despite being blasted by Israelis, it decided to move ahead with the first five-year $20 million grant. “Ford Foundation has improved their grant guidelines since Durban-I, but there are still concerns with funding practices,” said Naftali Balanson, managing editor of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based watchdog organization that has been a leading critic of not-for-profit organizations that express critical views of Israel."