In March 2011, the Army Museum in Stockholm, Sweden hosted an exhibit about the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence (BtS). During a media interview about the event, a representative for BtS stated,“We are the oppressors, we are the ones that are violating human rights on a daily basis. We are creating the terror against us, basically.”

Diakonia, a Swedish church-based humanitarian organization that receives massive funding from the Swedish government, was listed as one of the sponsors. NGO Monitor contacted Diakonia, asking if the inflammatory comments reflected Diakonia’s perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In his reply, Joakim Wohlfeil, a policy officer at Diakonia, did not address NGO Monitor’s questions in a substantive manner, but made ambiguous and possibly defamatory statements.

NGO Monitor turned to Diakonia’s Secretary General Bo Forsberg for clarification and documentation about the allegations made by Diakonia. His response also did not address the substance, but instead added further accusations, stating that “Diakonia is reluctant to be seen as interacting with NGO-monitor.”

Correspondence:

1) Letter to Joakim Wohlfeil, Diakonia Policy Advisor, asking for details on Diakonia funding for the Breaking the Silence museum exhibit in Stockholm (March 29, 2011)
2) Wohlfeil’s reply (April 11, 2011)
3) Follow up from NGO Monitor to Bo Forsberg, Secretary General of Diakonia, asking for clarification on ambiguous and potentially defamatory statements in Wohlfeil’s letter (April 26, 2011)
4) Diakonia’s reply (September 5, 2011)

1) Letter to Joakim Wohlfeil, Diakonia Policy Advisor, asking for details on Diakonia funding for the Breaking the Silence museum exhibit in Stockholm (March 29, 2011)

Dear Mr. Wohlfeil,

In March 2011, the Army Museum in Stockholm hosted an exhibit about the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence (BtS). According to the museum’s website, the exhibit was presented in cooperation with Diakonia.

During an interview about BtS and the exhibit, a BtS representative Itamar Shapira stated:

“With a cry to the Israeli society that sent us. Look what we have done; look at the world price that we are paying for holding the occupied territories – basically holding millions of Palestinians, with no rights, within military occupation…. It’s important for us to expose that. We are the oppressors, we are the ones that are violating human rights on a daily basis. We are creating the terror against us, basically… This is a war against civilians, a war against society.” (emphasis added). 

We are preparing an updated report on the museum exhibit, and would appreciate your response to the following questions:

  1. Did Diakonia provide financial assistance to the exhibit? If so, in what amount? And under what program framework?
  2. Are you aware of Mr. Shapira’s comments?
  3. Do they represent Diakonia’s perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict?
  4. If not, what steps is Diakonia taking in response to the statement?

We look forward to continued dialogue on these issues.

Sincerely,

Karoline Henriques
Europe Desk
NGO Monitor

2) Wohlfeil’s reply (April 11, 2011)

Dear Karoline

Breaking The Silence (BtS) themselves has already addressed your questions, I have however not seen your publication of their answer.
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/post_e.asp?id=44

It makes me happy that you have noticed the very successful and appreciated exhibition in Sweden.

The official numbers will show close to 5000 visitors during 2 weeks, combined with an enormous and positive impact in Scandinavian written and broadcasted media.

Among the most appreciated reactions from many visitors was the impression that BTS has presented a positive picture about the Israeli society.

Also BTS participation in events not focusing at Israel/Palestine-conflict was highly appreciated. For example in meetings with troops underway to UN/NATO missions, or expert seminars discussing ethical dilemmas for soldiers among civilians, interacting with researchers, media and swedish veterans from Congo, Balkan, Afghanistan etc…

All the information mentioned above will be part of the official reporting to the sponsors and therefore publicly available as soon as ready and compiled.

As all information provided will be part of open sources I would be grateful for NGO-monitor to refrain from giving any impression of specific cooperation with us, as the problematic situation regarding NGO-monitors lack of transparency regarding funding, and your links to extremist interest could make any impression of cooperation with NGO-monitor harmful for normal organizations.

Best regards
Joakim Wohlfeil
Diakonia Head Office (Sweden)
Policy Officer, Conflict and Justice

3) Follow up from NGO Monitor to Bo Forsberg, Secretary General of Diakonia, asking for clarification on ambiguous and potentially defamatory statements in Wohlfeil’s letter (April 26, 2011)

Dear Mr. Forsberg,

On March 29, 2011, NGO Monitor wrote to Joakim Wohlfeil, Policy Officer at Diakonia, asking for details about Diakonia funding for an exhibit at the Army Museum in Stockholm, held in conjunction with the controversial Israeli political advocacy NGO Breaking the Silence (BtS). We also inquired about Diakonia’s response tostatements made by a BtS representative. (Please find our original letter attached for your reference).

We received a reply from Mr. Wohlfeil on April 11, 2010 (please find a copy of Mr. Wohlfeil’s email in full attached). The email did not address our questions in a substantive manner. Instead, Mr. Wohlfeil made ambiguous and potentially defamatory statements, including:

“I would be grateful for NGO-monitor to refrain from giving any impression of specific cooperation with us, as the problematic situation regarding NGO-monitors lack of transparency regarding funding, and your links to extremist interest could make any impression of cooperation with NGO-monitor harmful for normal organizations.” (emphasis added)

We would appreciate your response to our four original questions, as well as the following questions:

  1. Are you familiar with Mr. Wohlfeil’s response?
  2. Does his non-responsive email reflect Diakonia policy regarding open debate, and civil discourse on transparency in NGO funding?
  3. Mr. Wohlfeil claims a “problematic situation regarding NGO-monitors lack of transparency regarding funding” Please clarify this allegation. (For your information, our donors and financial reports are listed here.)
  4. Mr. Wohlfeil makes the inflammatory and highly offensive allegation that NGO Monitor has “links to extremist interest.” Please clarify what is meant by this allegation.
  5. What did Mr. Wohlfeil mean by “normal organizations”? Which organizations are considered by Diakonia to be “normal organizations”?
  6. We notice that the Head of Legal Advocacy and Research Department from the NGO Al Haq was cc’ed on Mr. Wohlfeil’s email to NGO Monitor. We would like to know the reason for this. Was Al Haq involved in any way with the BtS exhibition in Stockholm?

We look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Naftali Balanson
Managing Editor
NGO Monitor

4) Diakonia’s reply (September 5, 2011)

Karoline Henriques, NGO-monitor

Let me first say I´m sorry for this late reply. Your mail before the summer coincided with travels and then, as you have already understood, the summer vacations started.

I’m familiar with Mr. Wohlfeil’s response. As Policy Officer, the communication with NGO-monitor falls within his area of responsibilities, especially since he has also earlier taken time to both correspond with, provide background material to, and personally meet with, NGO-monitor’s researcher.

From Diakonia’s perspective it is a basic principle to be open and transparent. This is also why all our reports, finances and applications are publicly available via several different sources. In many cases we also use our own resources to assist established researchers, media and NGO’s with information even if they sooner or later could have found the same data via other sources, just as we initially did for NGO-monitor.

We are used to receiving both positive and negative feedback that might prove very valuable to to improve our performance, however in both cases the quality of the feedback is essential for the possibility to draw conclusions on how to improve our work.

Regrettably the quality of analysis in your report, the outdated views on development and change strategy, absence of global references, the inclusion of inciting statements, and finally the reactions from academics, media and institutions proved a piece of work we could not regard as serious.

On the contrary, the reactions from established scholars and institutions when we asked for their opinions pointed to NGO-monitor as a string-puppet voice for Israeli settler interests and as closely linked to domestic political agendas rather than as an independent agency. By the few media contacts we have had regarding the report (where no major media in the end published anything) they also, according to what they told us, decided to rejected the report due to the lack of impartiality.

As to your question about what Mr. Wohlfeil regarded as normal organizations he basically refers to the principle of independence in analytical work.

Regarding the initial reason for this dialogue I repeat the statement by Mr. Wohlfeil that you should finalize your ongoing dialogue with Breaking The Silence, addressing most of the issues you have asked Diakonia about. As far as I know, they have still not received any response from you to their questions.

You also asked why Diakonia is reluctant to be seen as interacting with NGO-monitor.

According to my information NGO-monitor still has strong links to the Jerusalem Centre for public affairs, which has published inflammatory and inciting statements against both political and religious entities, and whose leading profile described people like the infamous leader of the “Knutby-sect” as positive examples of Swedish friends of Israel.

Moreover the few positive reactions to NGO-monitor and your analyzes in the political context have been nearly unanimously related to the right wing populist party Sverigedemokraterna, (also the former Swedish Nazi party).

Nearly all Swedish bloggers referring to NGO-monitor reports in a positive way have been warned about by respected anti-racist bodies in Sweden like the newspaper EXPO and SKMA (Swedish committee against anti-Semitism). The party Sverigedemokraterna (SD) today claims to be Sweden’s most Israel friendly party, but their politics and argumentation have been strongly rejected by for example the leadership of the Swedish Jewish council.

I cant’t judge if NGO-monitor’s supporter-club in Sweden are your friends by will, or gives you a bear-hug, but it would be more than naive if NGO-monitor could not see the problems for any civil-society representative to be seen as interacting with an organization in this context.

It is NOT Diakonia’s role to judge or advice NGO-monitor on your strategies or political opinions, and you might not even agree with the statements we heard regarding your lack of independency. But looking at your website and your list of publications your analysis and monitoring is only of organizations reflected as critical to the occupation and settlements, hence it would surprise me if the view of NGO-monitor as a voice for settlement interests was totally unfamiliar to you.

You have probably discussed why you attract the kind of “supporters” you do, but it is only NGO-monitor who can decide if this is part of your strategy, but you must also be able to understand those who regard this as problematic.

Finally, as I said it is up to you to decide your strategies and what context and positions you prefer in the public debate. But if you have the ambition to become a respected organization presenting serious analysis I don’t really see the point of this kind of material:  http://www.ngo-monitor.org/bds/sewer_8.html . Knowing the situations in history where people, religions, or idea’s have been portrayed as dirt or filth, and knowing the outcomes of those situations, it’s hard not to be concerned.

Diakonia has a clear interest in having an ongoing dialogue also with researchers and institutions with a critical view on our work, however as you might understand given the limited time and resources I rather prefer that my staff prioritizes interaction with policy makers and decision makers of different views rather with the one’s just repeating the same messages.

Bo Forsberg
Secretary General of Diakonia