As Voting Nears, Israeli Democracy is not Healthy
As Voting Nears, Israeli Democracy is not Healthy
- Thu, Oct 8 at 2:04 PM
As Voting Nears, Israeli Democracy is not Healthy
Mickey Gitzin, Acting CEO
Support Democracy and Equality
The New Israel Fund is the engine for a more just and democratic Israel—one where all people, Jewish and Palestinian, can live in dignity and safety.
Responding to Settler Violence, From Fences to Mobile Clinics
In brief: As settler violence escalates, NIF’s new rapid response grants take on the crisis from every angle, investing where and when it matters most.
With new settlements bearing down on villages and towns across the West Bank, more and more Palestinian communities are asking for support, including for physical protection. In response to the needs of the families on the ground, NIF partner organizations, including Looking the Occupation in the Eye, Torat Tzedek, Rabbis for Human Rights have begun installing gates, fences, security cameras, and flood lighting in areas facing the brunt of settler violence. To date, they’ve helped install protective measures in fifteen locations across the West Bank.
This is just one of the tactics that can make a difference for Palestinian families facing brutal violence and attempts to force them off of their land. Seeing the need on the ground, NIF is making $185,000 in rapid response grants to expand work like this, increasing security for many more communities.
At this critical juncture, NIF is also supporting Peace Now, which is working with preeminent Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard on two legal battles in court related to home demolitions in Umm al-Khair and land seizure in the Bil’in area. Legal battles like these are an essential strategy for blocking the establishment of irreversible facts that would displace more Palestinian communities.
We’re also helping Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHRI) expand its mobile clinic’s capacity. As Palestinians continue to face physical attack, and as the encroachment of settlements increasingly disrupts the ability of communities to travel and access care, PHRI volunteers provide essential medical services.
Watch NIF’s Idit Klein explain our approach on Facebook or Instagram.
Bottom line: No single approach will end settler violence. That’s why we are invested in both long term, systemic change and in meeting urgent needs in the here and now.
Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon at the UN: “Choose Peace”
In brief: They both lost loved ones to the conflict. Last week, they told the UN Security Council that peace is possible.
They’ve met with the Pope, been interviewed on the Daily Show, and written a book. Now, after addressing the Security Council in New York City last week, peace activists Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah can add the UN to their list of distinguished audiences.
The pair began collaborating three years ago, united at first by their immense grief: When Aziz was a child, his teenage brother was beaten to death in an Israeli prison; Both of Inon’s parents were murdered on October 7. The two men turned not to revenge but to building a better future for all Israelis and Palestinians together. NIF is proud to partner on the Future is Peace Book Tour.
“We believe this is not Israelis versus Palestinians,” Aziz told the assembled leaders last Monday. “It is a choice between those who believe in peace, justice, and equality and those who do not. Yet.”
The Middle East was a focal point at this year’s General Assembly. Maoz and Aziz, who are themselves living proof that partnership is possible, were ambassadors in the discussion for those who believe that a future of peace and equality is the only way.
Bottom line: Together with Maoz and Aziz, we’re amplifying a shared message: the only viable future is one based in partnership between Israelis and Palestinians.
Nasij Brings Ambitious Goals and a Message of Equality to the US
In brief: An NIF-sponsored delegation came to the United States to learn, build their skills, and share a clear message: Palestinian citizens of Israel are organizing and building power—and their voices deserve to be heard.
A delegation of eleven Palestinian citizens of Israel, all senior staff of Israeli nonprofits, traveled to Washington and New York last week, trading their offices in Nazareth, Haifa, Lod and beyond for the halls of Congress. Their goal was to deepen their knowledge of grassroots organizing and policy change, share their work with American audiences, and strengthen their fundraising and communication skills.
To that end, they sat down with politicians, received a briefing from the ACLU, and met American Jewish community groups, leaving with an expanded network and new tools for amplifying their important work.
The leaders are all part of NIF’s Nasij program. “Nasij” means "tapestry" in Arabic, and that's exactly what the program seeks to create. It strengthens emerging activists, small organizations, and young leaders, weaving them into a stronger, more connected network of Palestinian organizations inside Israel.
For decades, Palestinian citizens of Israel have seen their communities marginalized and neglected, resulting in endemic crime and poverty. Nasij empowers leaders who are equipped to fight discrimination and build local power. Participants in the program represent organizations that mentor youth, fight for the rights of Israel’s unrecognized Bedouin villages, and combat gun violence.
After a whirlwind trip to the US, they’re bringing home new tools in the fight to build a flourishing, more equal society.
Bottom line: NIF’s Nasij program is not just investing in the next generation of Palestinian organizations and leaders: it’s building a stronger, more connected movement for equality.
Reckoning with a Changed World, 3 Years After October 7
In brief: NIF’s Director in Israel Shira Ben-Sasson opens up about loss, grief, and hope in a feature about how October 7 changed Jewish nonprofits.
“In the days and weeks after Oct. 7, the New Israel Fund began, for the first time, providing direct services to Israelis, calling hotels, buying open rooms to house displaced Israelis and supplying basic needs to survivors and hostage families,” details a recent piece in eJewishPhilanthropy on the seismic shifts across the Jewish nonprofit world.
NIF was uniquely positioned to act, Shira told eJP, because we were already enmeshed with Israel's democracy movement, which had been actively organizing across the country.
In the chaos after October 7, those same activists mobilized to provide food, clothes, transportation, and housing to people affected by the massacre. They hit the streets to advocate for the hostages, with NIF becoming one of the first sponsors of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
Shira also lost someone close to her family: Hersh Goldberg-Polin. When Hersh was found murdered, "I thought the war was over," she told eJP. "I couldn't fathom that the war would continue." His death should’ve proved that military solutions had failed and that it was time to pursue diplomacy–another major focus of NIF’s work post-October 7.
In the article, Shira detailed NIF’s work on core issues of democracy and human rights. "The easiest thing is to turn a blind eye to what's happening in the West Bank with settler violence," she said. Instead, NIF is making major investments in pushing back and building a stronger, more integrated movement for equality and peace.
Bottom line: Shira isn’t driven by "hope." "Hope sometimes is very far from reach," she said, "so commitment and strategy and solidarity is what you use—and those are as important for me as hope."
NIF in Action
➡ Holding Liat, a film about a hostage family grappling with the war for which ALBI Fund, Institute, and Lab served as an impact partner, launched on Apple, Amazon, Google and Kanopy this week. Watch.
➡ The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) submitted a petition to the Supreme Court demanding that they provide appropriate sewage maintenance in Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem. Read more.
➡ Settlers attacked activists from NIF Standing Together, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Bnei Avraham, seriously injuring four. Despite increasingly brazen attacks, our partners will not stand down from supporting Palestinian communities in the West Bank. Read more.
➡ NIF partner and Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard announced on X the release of Palestinian activist Issa Amro, who Sfard represents, after Issa was detained by Israeli authorities. Read more.
➡ After initially opening up a tender for a controversial plot of land called E1, a judge ruled that the process must wait until after Israeli elections, delaying construction. NIF Deputy VP for Communications and Policy, Elisheva Goldberg, explains on Facebook and Instagram.
➡ Have You Seen the Horizon Lately produced a series of videos aimed at cooling hostility towards, and alienation of, Palestinian citizens in Israeli society. Watch an example.
What We're Reading
Almost Everyone is Wrong About Zionism and Anti-Zionism
David Davidi-Brown, Prospect
NIF-UK’s Chief Executive writes that the Green Party’s recent move to link Zionism with racism misses the history and complexity of the term.
The Making of Israel’s Palestinian Mafias
Eilat Maoz, +972 Magazine
A podcast examining how crime took over in Arab communities across Israel, and what it reveals about dysfunction within the Israeli state.
Heroine or Public Enemy? The Israeli Blocking Much of Netanyahu’s Agenda.
David M. Halbfinger and Natan Odenheimer, New York Times
Gali Baharav-Miara, Israel’s Attorney General, has stood in the way of many of the government’s attempts to augment its own power. Her efforts have made her a target of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ire.
My Mother Was a Peace Activist Killed on October 7. Don't Use Her Name to Justify Mass Killing.
Yonatan Zeigen, Haaretz
“Anyone who desires a world in which peace activists are not murdered must listen to them while they are alive and strive for peace, not use them retroactively as a justification for war.”
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