The Left goes crazy in opposition to legislation on funding

By Steven Plaut

You will be excused if you have not been following the debate over proposals to demand that sources of funding for political parties and activist groups be revealed.

In Ireland.
Curiously, it is the Sinn Fein Party that is demanding that reform. Actually, this is not so unusual. Lots of democracies require disclosure of financial support from outside the country for political groups operating therein. Aside from Israel, I doubt any country at all has allowed funding from abroad for seditious groups supporting the enemies of their country in time of war.

What a difference between the debate in Ireland and the savage bloodcurdling hysterical blitz by the Israeli Left (now even being led by President Shimon Peres) against the proposals to investigate and expose funding for anti-Israel activist groups operating inside Israel.

The Israeli Left is putting war paint on and taking to the streets and to the newspapers. Over the weekend a demonstration by leftists against the proposal was held in Tel Aviv, complete with PLO flags nd anti-Israel slogans. Haaretz and Yediot say there were thousands who participated in it, which I guess means that there were hundreds who participated in it. The demonstration was sponsored in part by the Israeli communist party, so you can see how devoted the demonstrators are to freedom and democracy and pluralism. The Israeli leftist media have gone bonkers and are now self-recruiting to battle the measure en masse and in near-unison. The left wing of the Likud, led by Meretz wannabe Dan Meridor, has also come out OPPOSED to the investigation.

And even Netanyahu has been cowed into changing the proposal. Now instead of investigating the funding of leftist seditious groups operating in Israel, the government will investigate funding for groups of both the Left and the Right.

Now there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the demand that groups from the Right also be subject to a bit of financial transparency and accountability. But the symmetry conceded by Netanyahu is outrageous and out of place. The groups of the “Right” operating in Israel are not actively attempting to achieve Israel’s annihilation. They have their own platforms, with which you are free to disagree or agree.

But the far Leftist groups are seditious groups seeking to harm Israel. They persecute innocent Israeli army officers, collaborate with terrorist groups and with the enemies of Israel (like the flotilla terrorists), support the worldwide boycotts against Israel, collaborate with anti-Israel figures like Goldstone, endorse forms of treason like the Palestinian “right of return,” promote refusal by soldiers to serve in the Israeli military. And of course lie through their latte-stained teeth.

The Left and its amen chorus outside of Israel are trying to misrepresent the proposal as an assault against nice caring “human rights” groups in Israel because Israel fears having its “war crimes” revealed. The reality is that these are anti-Israel and in some cases anti-Semitic propaganda groups supporting the enemies of Israel in times of war. They refuse to acknowledge that Jews are entitled to any human rights at all, certainly not the human right to walk down
the street or sip coffee in a café without being murdered. They have
never ever heard of a Palestinian terrorist atrocity they wish to
denounce.

And to make matters so much worse, many of these same far Leftists are whining that the proposal to require transparency in their finances is undemocratic and contrary to freedom of speech. But these are the very first people to demand that non-Leftists be stripped of THEIR rights to freedom of expression! These are the far Leftists who insist that every single denunciation of leftwing sedition is in fact “McCarthyism.” These same whiners about “McCarthyism” led the massive McCarthyist campaign against freedom of speech for non-leftists after the Rabin assassination. These are the people who regard the expression of any opinion with which the Israeli communist party might disagree to be “racist” and “incitement.”

These are the people who demand that Rabbis who suggest that people not rent property to Arabs in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods be indicted as racists. And at the same time these are the very same people marching and signing petitions demanding that no property be rented or sold to Jews in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood at the foothills of the Hebrew University or in the “City of David” neighborhood of Jerusalem. These McCarthyist racists insist that Jews do not belong in those neighborhoods. Never mind that the “City of David” was made a Jewish town by King David himself. They also see nothing bigoted about demanding that Orthodox Jews be prevented from moving into predominantly secularist neighborhoods where the observant “do not belong.”

Not a single leftwing whiner has spoken out against the Israeli leftist Prosecutor’s harassment and interrogation of Rabbis. Not a single one has spoken up on behalf of the right of settlers and “Right-wingers” to express THEIR opinions. Not a single one has denounced the criminalization of the Kahanists and the suppression of THEIR right to express their opinions. Not a single one has spoken out against the selective misuse of Israel’s idiotic “anti-racism” law to harass non-leftists, while there has yet to be a single case in which that law was used to indict anti-Jewish Arabs or leftists.

Arabs and leftists in Israel may cheer and justify mass terrorist attacks against Jews. Leftwing professors at Ben Gurion University may chant (as they recently did) in Arabic: “In spirit and in blood we will redeem thee, Palestine” and “A Thousand blessings to the shaheed suicide bombers.” But wives of Israeli Rabbis suggesting that Jewish girls not date Arab men may soon be facing criminal indictment for “racism.”

2.
Job Offer: Subversive

by Gil Ronen
(Israelnationalnews.com) “‘Human Rights’ organizations are searching for subversives and defamers of soldiers,” a new provocative poster by grassroots Zionist group Im Tirtzu proclaims. (Seen here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/static/blogs 20110117053036.jpg )
“A global delegitimization campaign requires Israeli employees,” says the poster (at right), which graphically emulates the type of work-wanted ad that is commonly found on tree trunks in Israeli cities. “Preference will be given to conscientious objectors, draft- odgers and “luminaries” who specialize in hypocrisy, superciliousness and libel.”

The basic salary on offer is no less than $9,000 per month. “The job includes: promotion of an international boycott of Israel, persecution of IDF officers and the passing of false information to international committees.”

“For details contact our office in Ramallah or the Al-Aqsa Fund. Dial *SUBVERSION and secure European citizenship and a company car.” The tongue-in-cheek “job offer” is a reference to the all-too-serious allegations against Israeli leftist groups like B’Tselem and many others, which Im Tirtzu alleges receive money from European countries through a Ramallah-based fund with clear terror connections. The money funneled through the fund has strings attached, Im Tirtzu says, and Israeli-based groups that take the money are obliged to use it to fight Israel.