NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is urging the New Israel Fund to publicly denounce anti-Zionist statements made by an official of an Arab-Jewish school that the Fund finances.

The New Israel Fund-backed “School for Peace” is located in Neve Shalom, an Arab-Jewish village in Israel that is often touted as proof that Arabs and Jews can peacefully coexist.

Eitan Bronstein, director of the youth division of the School for Peace, told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz on August 13, 2004:

* Regarding Arab demands for the mass entry of millions of Arab “refugees” to Israel, Bronstein said: “I don’t know who will want to return, but whoever wants to — let them return — and if the result is that there will not be a Jewish state, then there won’t.” (Translation courtesy of IMRA)

* “[O]ne of the achievements of the Left is that it succeeds in turning the word ‘settlement’ into a curse.”

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “The New Israel Fund raises funds from American Jews for the Neve Shalom School for Peace by claiming that it fosters peace and coexistence. Now it appears that the school’s students are being taught that the existence of a Jewish State does not matter, and that Jews who live beyond the pre-1967 armistice line should be hated. The New Israel Fund should denounce Bronstein’s statements and either demand his dismissal, or withdraw its funding from the School for Peace.”