Christian Aid, Ford Foundation and the Economist on the campaign for boycotts and divestment

NGO Monitor reports have been cited in a range of publications, informing the debate on NGOs and their role in promoting double standards and the delegitimization of Israel.

Boycotting Israel: New pariah on the block, September 13, 2007

“…FOR once, Israel’s critics and cheerleaders agree on something: the Jewish state risks greater international isolation. Pro-Israel groups such as NGO Monitor and the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs say a new assault is on the way. In the other camp, Shir Hever of the Alternative Information Centre, an Israeli-Palestinian activist group in Jerusalem, says that advocating a boycott is no longer always treated as anti-Semitism. Both sides have a motive to exaggerate such claims. But “boycotts, divestments and sanctions” (known in the activist world as “BDS”) do seem to be growing.

Pro-Israel lobbyists see this as part of what they call the “Durban strategy”, devised by activists at a United Nations anti-racism conference there in 2001, which marked a new high point for Israel-bashing…..”

Christian Aid denies it is biased in the Middle East, September 14, 2007

“The relief agency Christian Aid has denied charges made by an Israeli research group that its reporting of events in the Middle East was biased, unfairly blaming Israel for the problems of the region.

NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem think tank, charged the relief agency promoted a pro-Palestinian agenda, and that its advocacy work abetted the conflict between Arabs and Israelis

… Christian Aid engaged in a “moral equivalency” that omitted the “context of terror.” Its “practice of blaming Israel for Palestinian hardship and for relieving Palestinians from responsibility for their own fate is incompatible with its objective of impartiality,” NGO Monitor said. Its “one-sided political agenda” was inconsistent with its charitable purpose.

A spokesman for Christian Aid denied the charge of bias, stating that while its work in the Middle East “can often be a source of contention” it remained “proud of our partners on the ground.”

Engel ‘Disappointed’ by Ford Forum for Mearsheimer, September 10, 2007

“…The executive director of the NGO Monitor, Gerald Steinberg, said that by funding a panel where Mr. Mearsheimer is scheduled to speak, the Ford Foundation risks reneging on that promise by underwriting at Columbia the kind of falsehoods it was funding at Durban.

Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer “are repeating many of these myths and use similar rhetoric that singles out Israel, uses double standards, and is considered by many to be anti-Semitic,” Mr. Steinberg said. “On this basis, I would say that by helping promote this propaganda, Ford is violating its post-Durban pledge and repeating the same pattern.”

…According to a new report that is expected to be published in the next few weeks by the NGO Monitor, the Ford Foundation last year provided grants to politicized NGOs with strong anti- Israel and anti-peace agendas.

The unpublished report by the NGO Monitor concludes that overall, the Ford Foundation continued to support “problematic” NGOs, even after its pledge to clean up its act. “There is a very real danger that Ford-funded NGOs will again lead the demonization of Israel,” the report states. ”