Sockpuppets for Jew-hatred…
This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA)
UNITED STATES EXPOSES DO-GOOD ANTISEMITES
Manfred Gerstenfeld
In the final days before the American presidential election, there were some early indications that the U.S State Department might declare three major human rights organizations as antisemitic – respectively Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Oxfam.1 For antisemitism experts these justified accusations were not new, yet to hear them from American government circles was a radical innovation.
The concept of “do-good antisemitism” is simple. If an organization mainly undertakes actions that are perceived as meritorious or good, it can sometimes allow itself to misbehave in the margins, even at times extremely, on a few other issues. This is what has been happening for a long years by many more than the aforementioned three major NGOs in regard to Israel. These supposedly “do good” bodies have been frequently inciting, maligning and defaming Israel. At the same time, they have remained mostly silent about the major criminality and cult of death that permeates Palestinian society and leadership.
These three NGOs are humanitarian racists. That expression covers those who intrinsically attribute reduced responsibility for their acts to people of certain ethnic or national groups. It is a sub-category of what might be called progressive perversity.
The NGO-Monitor organization and its founding president, Professor Gerald Steinberg, have — with exceptional perseverance — exposed the misbehavior of the three NGOs for many years. NGO-Monitor should be given credit for the fact that this has now reached the public domain via the U.S administration.
Concerning the aforementioned organizations one can best quote some of the NGO-Monitor summaries. It writes that Human Rights Watch is a “powerful NGO, with a massive budget, close links to Western governments, and significant influence in international institutions. Its publications reflect the absence of professional standards, research methodologies, and military and legal expertise, as well as a deep-seated ideological bias against Israel.”2
On Amnesty International NGO-Monitor wrote: it “disproportionately singles out Israel for condemnation, focusing solely on the conflict with the Palestinians, misrepresenting the complexity of the conflict, and ignoring more severe human rights violations in the region.”
NGO-Monitor has published examples of how Amnesty International defends a number of people linked to terror. It accuses the organization of distorting international law and misusing terms like collective punishment. NGO-Monitor mentions that Amnesty International is a national campaign partner for the campaign No Way to Treat a Child, a vehicle for exploiting children for political warfare against Israel.3
Concerning Oxfam NGO-Monitor writes that it “consistently paints a highly misleading picture of the Arab-Israeli conflict, departing from its humanitarian mission focused on poverty. Most Oxfam statements erase all complexity and blame Israel exclusively for the situation, and these distortions and their impacts contribute significantly to the conflict. Oxfam also distorts economic analysis of the West Bank and Gaza, repeatedly arguing that the sole impediment to Palestinian development is Israeli policy, ignoring intra-Palestinian limitations and factors.”4
There is a huge difference in importance if do-good antisemites are exposed by an Israeli organization such as NGO-Monitor or if they are called out by the American administration. That difference has far from fully been noticed by many observers.
As soon as the news about a possible US condemnation of some do-good antisemitic NGOs transpired, apologists and whitewashers of the latter appeared. One of them was Andy Levin, a democratic congressman from Michigan, who used to work for Human Rights Watch. He wrote on Twitter that criticism of Israeli policies is not antisemitism: “I know because I do so out of love for a country I want to survive,” he wrote.5 He added that the groups do essential, often dangerous work to protect human rights. This was a non-starter because those actions enable — and in their own eyes, legitimize — them to become do-good antisemites.
Far more important and problematic is the attitude of the Anti-Defamation League on this issue. It was quoted as stating: “We strongly believe that these organizations are crucial to ensuring robust civil society and democratic protections worldwide.” At the same time the ADL hedged that there was “significant disagreement” between it and the three groups on Israeli policy.6
The ADL said calling the groups antisemitic “is neither accurate nor helpful in the fight against antisemitism.”7 Yet one only has to put part of the three NGO’s statements next to the International Holocaust Remembrance definition of antisemitism to realize that these bodies commit antisemitic acts.8
The ADL also stated that calling these groups antisemitic would politicize efforts to combat antisemitism. This statement bordered on the absurd as the three do-good NGOs and many others have greatly politicized their discriminatory attacks on Israel and thus the antisemitism issue. The ADL position has two components. It is partly a whitewashing of the three human rights organizations. Furthermore, it is a recommendation not to act against them, which should be strongly condemned.
In a lengthy 2018 article in Commentary, Seth Mandel, the executive editor of The Washington Examiner, has heavily criticized the current head of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt writing: “To be clear, then, antisemitism is an integral part of the various ideologies underpinning American leftism in 2018. Greenblatt adamantly refuses to confront this, an unconscionable abdication of his responsibilities.”9
One can only wonder what kind of judgment the ADL Board exercised in hiring Greenblatt as successor to Abe Foxman, the national director of the ADL from 1987 – 2015. Greenblatt was part of the Obama administration. That president, partly not intentionally, has been the greatest threat to the future of the Jewish people, mainly through the JCPOA agreement with the genocidally intentioned Iranians.10 This agreement has made possible a huge outburst of Iranian support for terrorism and mayhem in the Middle East.
The ADL’s position on these three antisemitic do-good NGO’s is one more indication that it is increasingly becoming a partly tainted organization in the arena of antisemitism. This follows another radical act of misbehavior. The ADL co-signed an advertisement published by 600 Jewish organizations in the New York Times. The signatories identified themselves with the anti-white racist Black Lives Matter movement, created by neo-Marxists and permeated by antisemitism. Signing that advertisement is synonymous with a major whitewashing of antisemitism.11
There is another minor remark that should be made on the side. It seems insignificant though it is not. Among the signatories of the New York Tines advertisement is not only the tiny anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace, but are also 19 of its even smaller affiliates. It was a radical management misjudgment for such a major organization as the ADL to co-sign a text with such a collection of insignificance.
It is not clear whether there will be an official American follow up to this statement about the do-good antisemites. Yet by raising the issue, the Trump administration has done the Jewish people a great favor. It has brought into the public domain the huge problem of “do-good” antisemitism, a widespread, yet rarely mentioned form of this hatred. That incitement is far from limited to human rights NGO’s. The prime operator of do-good antisemitism is the United Nations. Perhaps if President Donald Trump is re-elected there might be a follow up exposure of that body too.
Whether this is going to happen or not it is too early to know but the genie is out of the bottle.
Footnotes:
1 www.jta.org/2020/10/22/politics/report-state-department-planning-to-label-human-rights-groups-anti-semitic
3 www.ngo-monitor.org/ngos/amnesty_international/
4 www.ngo-monitor.org/ngos/oxfam/
5 www.timesofisrael.com/adl-slams-us-effort-to-declare-rights-groups-anti-semitic/
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 www.holocaustremembrance.com/working-definition-antisemitism
9 www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/seth-mandel/the-shame-of-the-anti-defamation-league/
10 https://2009-2017.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa//index.htm
11 https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/black-lives-matter-antisemitism/
