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[Excerpts:]

Similarly, I cringe when Progressive critics – who want Israel and the Jewish community to be more open to criticism – go ballistic when anyone dares to criticize them. Forging a new conversation that is more balanced, less hysterical, and more critical also demands self-criticism. Fighting for democracy also requires a commitment to mutuality and a healthy debate about the Left’s flaws not just the Right’s.

The most recent round of unjustified defensiveness was triggered last week with Professor Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor’s article, “Transparent Meddling, Opaque Funding: The EU and NGOs.” Steinberg challenged the outrageous, undemocratic, corruption-inducing, incompetence-shielding fact that for the last thirteen years “all documents related to EU funding for dozens of Israeli and Palestinian political NGOs have been labeled top secret.” While raising this important question about transparency, Steinberg also criticized some of the initiatives that the EU funds, accusing them of discouraging rather than encouraging Middle East peace.

Many leftists, once again, were furious. Adhering to the usual script, the counterattack claimed “An array of NGOs, including NGO Monitor, are advancing an assault on Israeli democracy in lockstep with the government,” and accused Steinberg and his NGO Monitor of conducting a “meticulous, McCarthy-like inquiry of NGOs and their funders.” The first criticism commits the sin of which NGO Monitor is often accused – innuendo: the author Hagai El-Ad, of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, resorts to weasel words like “seems to” and “tag team effort” instead of offering proof. The second criticism, in an article called “In Defense of NGO’s Right to Meddle,” contradicts itself. McCarthy was anything but meticulous; he was a dangerous, undisciplined, slob. NGO Monitor has been so successful because it meticulously researches, meticulously footnotes, and meticulously proves its cases – as it did with Steinberg’s recent article, whose substantive complaints of secrecy and lack of transparency remain unrefuted.

It seems that the Association for Civil Rights needs to learn about civil debate. And it seems that Israeli democracy is thriving, with a hard fought political campaign going on, and with exactly these kinds of intensive Left-Right clashes taking place. I only wish the debate in the campaign and on this topic spent more time on substance, and less on personalities, more time exploring the issues, less time casting aspersions. Hysterical defenses by self-styled defenders of democracy betraying contempt for democratic discourse should stop; let’s all strive to foster more mutual respect, consistency, integrity, civility and, transparency, especially when it comes to the EU, given that we are talking about foreign governments subsidizing supposedly grassroots organizations trying to sway a democratic ally.