The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) pointed out today that the hatred of Israel displayed by the Black Lives Matter movement stems in large part from the dishonest propaganda of the heavily foreign-founded, Arab Israeli NGO Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has been blackening Israel’s name for years.
Last week, The Movement for Black Lives, an offshoot of Black Lives Matter, announced that it would be engaging in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel because, it said, “Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people.” The Movement for Black Lives credits Adalah as one of its “organizations currently working on policy.”
Adalah entered Israel’s national debate in 2006-7 over an Israeli Constitution with their own proposals. Adalah proposed a ‘Democratic Constitution‘. In fact, both proposals called, not for democracy, which Israel has enjoyed since its inception, but for a binational state that would couple an unlimited ‘right of return’ for Palestinian Arab refugees of the 1948-9 war and their millions of descendants with abolishing the Jewish Law of Return.
In April 2008, five Adalah board members joined an Israeli Arab delegation to South Africa in a visit the group itself portrayed as commiserating with fellow victims of apartheid. Adalah takes the position that the Israeli government is a “junta which proves each day that it is the most fascist and racist in history.” Adalah is not as it purports to be, simply an Arab civil rights group, but an organization working to harm Israel’s international reputation.
Thus, Adalah, along with other foreign-funded NGOs like B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence, provided the false information to Judge Goldstone which formed the basis of the false (and since discredited) Goldstone report that accused Israel of war crimes during the 2008-9 Gaza war.
From 2012 to 2015, Adalah received direct funding from foreign governmental bodies of NIS 12,719,902. From 2008 to 2014, the New Israel Fund, which tells its donors that it will not support BDS efforts and that it will support Israel, authorized grants for Adalah in the amount of $1,874,656.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Adalah calls itself ‘an independent human rights organization,’ and thus its statements enjoy some of the halo effect attached to this self-anointed status. But Adalah has goals far beyond human rights. It seeks to nullify Israel as a Jewish state –– as the nation state of the Jewish people –– claiming that Israeli legislation discriminates against its non-Jewish Arab citizens.
“Adalah cites ‘more than 50 Israeli laws enacted since 1948 that directly or indirectly discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel,’ a list that seems to have persuaded The Movement for Black Lives to call Israel an ‘apartheid state’ and for its dismantling.
“In fact, the laws in question are deemed discriminatory by Adalah whenever they merely declare Israel to be the nation state of the Jewish people. For example, the flag law that it is supposedly discriminatory because it is a Jewish flag.
“Naturally, this is nonsense. A study undertaken by the Institute for Zionist Strategies, available on its website, demonstrates that not a single one of the 57 laws cited by Adalah is actually discriminatory.
“No one expects Britain to remove the Union Jack (which includes two crosses) from its flag just because many of its citizens include Muslims, Hindus and Jews.
“No one tells Scandinavian countries to remove the cross that adorns their flags.
“And no one has told Muslim majority states to remove the Islamic crescent from their flags.
“The Arab Republic of Egypt, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Islamic Republic of Iran are the official names of just a few of Israel’s neighbors, near and distant. Despite the discrimination against and persecution of minorities in these states, no-one has suggested that they must change their national symbols or that they lack a right to exist.
“The British Anthem is ‘God Save the Queen.’ Must it be changed in deference to sensibilities of Britons who are atheists or support the country becoming a republic?
“The U.S. pledge of allegiance speaks of ‘One Nation under God.’ Must this be changed in deference to the scruples of atheists?
“Of course not. National heritages are not to be discarded because not all citizens see their own views reflected in them.
“A requirement of citizenship is that people identify with the national heritage, even if it is not personally their own. The same applies to Israel’s non-Jewish minorities.”