Canadian Government Funding NGO’s anti-Israel Propaganda

[Woman of the Phoenix]

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Its domestic advocacy is unceasingly critical of Israel even as it downplays Palestinian human rights abuses and ignores Palestinian terrorism. An op-ed on the Alternatives website by Neve Gordon on the subject of the construction of the security fence accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ignores the complex reasons behind the wall. Instead, Gordon resorts to simplistic slogans such as exhorting “international leaders” to “tell Prime Minister Sharon that at this historical moment he has an option between walls and ethnic cleansing, on the one hand, and open borders and freedom, on the other.” Moreover, Gordon simplistically compares the State of Israel to Nazi Germany: “As the government of the Jewish state forces the Palestinians in ghettos, history must be turning in its grave… yet the so-called security wall does not separate these Palestinian residents from Jewish Israelis, but rather from their brethren in the West Bank.” http://www.alternatives.ca/article939.html.

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The PNGO Network is an umbrella organization of Palestinian NGOs which has recently been under scrutiny for its role in drafting preparatory documents for the 2001 Durban conference (see NGO Monitor’s info-file entry at www.ngo-monitor.org/archives/infofile.htm#palestinian ngo network). On January 5 the PNGO Network issued a statement reaffirming its opposition to foreign government funding conditions which required Palestinian NGOs to affirm that they did not pass money on to terrorist organizations.

Alternatives also supports the Alternative Information Center http://www.alternativenews.org, “a Palestinian-Israeli organization which disseminates information, research and political analysis on Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while promoting cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis based on the values of social justice, solidarity and community involvement.” Any claim to objectivity on the part of the AIC is belied, however, by its repeated references to “the apartheid wall,” its accusations of Israeli atrocities including the destruction of historical sites and its generally evocative language and tenor. The AIC is little more than an ideologically-driven opinion outlet, and not a serious and objective source of information – alternative or otherwise.

Alternatives’ political agenda masquerading under the rhetoric of ‘equal rights’ is symptomatic of the contradiction apparent in so many non-governmental organizations around the world. Merely advocating equal rights does not grant an NGO the right to ignore the wider picture. In order to ‘truly meet the expectations of all Canadians’, Alternatives should either restyle itself a political action committee or a lobby-group, or it should address the political prejudice evident in its work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v2n06/v2n06-2.htm