Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Photo: Wiki Commons.

After my friend, Hank Sheinkopf, former adviser to President Clinton, wrote in The New York Observer criticizing the New Israel Fund (NIF) and Michael Sfard (the extremist lawyer of numerous NIF organizations) for Sfard’s pleas on behalf of the PLO in a recent terror trial, the NIF finally responded to the tremendous criticism they are facing.

Sheinkopf concluded that, “Those who stand with New Israel Fund are standing against Israel. To suggest otherwise is a lie. I urge anyone affiliated with the NIF to stop supporting this organization financially. The New Israel Fund must be ostracized by the Jewish community.” The NIF did not agree.

Hence, an article on the NIF’s website states that, “…when asked if suicide bombings were war crimes, [Sfard] said he thinks they are worse than war crimes and can be classified as crimes against humanity.” NIF seems to think that because they criticize suicide bombers, they should not be criticized. Absurd.

Tellingly, the remainder of NIF’s statement consists of attacks, and features zero refutation of factual evidence showing that NIF supports BDS, harms Israel at the United Nations, and more.

Further examination of Sfard, who also works for Yesh Din, a major NIF benefactor, reveals that he has also served as defense counsel for many draft dodgers, as well as for convicted Israeli traitors Mordechai Vanunu and Marcus Klingberg, who was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union.

Sfard has referred to Israel’s policy of targeted assassinations of terrorists as “approaching a crime against humanity… International law obligates all states in the world to investigate them and prosecute them if there is enough evidence. If not Israel, then England. If not the Supreme Court, then the House of Lords.”

Sfard is widely criticized in Israel – including by Likud MK Danny Danon, who has said, “He’s using the legal system because his ideas are not welcome in Israeli society.” Naftali Balanson, head of research at NGO Monitor, noted “Michael Sfard is at the center of the NGO industry that exploits the rhetoric of human rights in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

A lawyer who is a witness for the PLO is no friend of Israel. The New Israel Fund are enemies of the Jewish people.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky asked many years ago, “What interest can the Jewish nation have in individuals whose supreme pride consists in the fact that they have renounced their own people? The bitter root of our shame and our suffering is that we do not give our own people the full love of a patriot. It would be better if we did not love our people at all, if we were unconcerned as to whether it existed or had disappeared, rather than that we should love it halfway which means to despise it.”

Those words describe and define the New Israel Fund. All donors, all decent people, any partnering organizations must say ‘No!’ to the New Israel Fund.