Israel Lobby Watch

A fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Martin Kramer, has called for “the West” to take measures to curb the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide. Kramer, who is also a fellow at the influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), made the call early this month in a speech at Israel’s Herzliya conference, a video of which is posted on his blog.

WASHINGTON (IPS) - A campaign of attacks against the New Israel Fund (NIF), a US-based progressive organization that supports human rights groups in Israel, has gained attention in both the Israeli and US media, raising questions about the role played by foreign non-profits and nongovernmental organizations in influencing Israeli government policy.

BRUSSELS (IPS) - Defenders of Israel’s aggressive stance have for many years been recognized as a powerful force shaping United States foreign policy. A less well-known fact is that the pro-Israel lobby has been making a concerted effort to strengthen its presence in Europe. The lobby’s determination to make an impression on European Union (EU) policy-makers was exemplified by a new booklet published on 28 January.

Chancellor Richard Herman of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently resigned due to his cooperation with political influence-peddlers seeking to gain admission for less qualified but privileged applicants. But Herman also participated in a more acceptable form of political corruption — publicly displayed with the invocation of high principle — in his cooperation with the Israel lobby in opposition to the British boycott of Israeli academics, and in the funding of the Israel Studies Project at the Urbana campus. David Green writes for The Electronic Intifada.

Right-wing groups in Israel want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the “witch-hunt” tactics of the US academic monitoring group Campus Watch, Israeli professors warn. The watchdog groups IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor are believed to be stepping up their campaigns after the recent publication in a US newspaper of an Israeli professor’s call to boycott Israel. Jonathan Cook reports.

WASHINGTON (IPS) - StandWithUs — an “organization that ensures that Israel’s side of the story is told” — has become increasingly aggressive in challenging the “pro-Israel” credentials of moderate Jewish-American groups, going so far as to suggest that receiving money from Arab donors and supporters of Human Rights Watch undermines a group’s commitment to Israel and peace.

The Israeli government has launched a television and Internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews. The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as “scare tactics,” are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young Diaspora Jews by encouraging their move to Israel. Jonathan Cook reports.

On 9 July Harvard University’s Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research invited Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, former Israeli military legal adviser, to their online Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum. The stated aim was to bring “objective” discussion to the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law. Maryam Monalisa Gharavi and Dr. Anat Matar report for The Electronic Intifada.

The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback and comment sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitter and Facebook may not be all that it seems. Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel. Jonathan Cook reports.