The relationship between NIF, Signing Anew, and this controversy is more complex than acknowledged by NIF, and adds to the questions that have been raised regarding NIFs decision making and due diligence in awarding grants and supervising the activities of politicized grantees.
The RToP is a complete mockery of due process, repeating the slander that Israel "subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalised regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law." As Judge Richard Goldstone wrote in the New York Times, "In Israel, there is no apartheid."
NIFs rhetoric, activities, and publications regarding Israel are often divisive and destructive, including stereotyping of minorities and critics, in contrast to NIFs claimed progressive objectives
Created by the Canadian Parliament in 1988, the Canadian government supplies 78% of Rights & Democracys budget. In 2009, R&D granted $10,000 each to Palestinian NGOs Al Haq and Al Mezan, through discretionary funds which have had little to no board oversight. These grants were repudiated at a January 7, 2010 board meeting. The controversy surrounding the grants led to the resignation of two board members, and some of the R&D staff demanding the resignation of the chair and other board members.
The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution calling for independent international fact-finding mission...to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements. NGOs, including Al Haq, lobbied for this investigation, reflecting their role in political warfare.
For a number of years, the campaign to demonize Israel has organized around the so-called Apartheid Week, an initiative that fuels the conflict but has largely been a failure. NGOs and NGO activists play leading roles in these events.
In advance of Israeli Apartheid Week, Prof. Steinberg explores how NGOs have cynically exploited apartheid rhetoric to libel Israel. This is the "antithesis of the mutual acceptance required for peace."
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