In the world of politics, especially that of Israeli policy and related activists worldwide, there is a constant effort to demonize the other side. Nowhere is this more evident than in the small cottage industry that has grown up to “monitor” human rights groups.

This industry is led by groups like NGO Monitor and UN Watch, and, while their role is certainly needed and acceptable, their tactics often fall well short of civilized political discourse.

There is nothing wrong with “watching the watchers.” It is not only fair but necessary for the work of human rights groups – whether international ones like Amnesty or Human Rights Watch, or domestic Israeli groups like B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence or Gisha – to be scrutinized closely. But there’s a difference between scrutiny and pursuing an agenda to delegitimize all criticism of Israel.

NGO Monitor is headed by Gerald Steinberg, the chair of the Political Science Department at Bar-Ilan University. The group spends its time examining all criticism of Israel, mostly from human rights groups both in Israel and abroad. They trace the funding and rely on a blanket label of “anti-Israel” to describe both the activities of Israeli and international NGOs as well as such funders as the New Israel Fund, European Union charitable funds, Oxfam, the Canadian International Development Agency, and USAID.

NGO Monitor says that by funding such groups as B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, these governments and foundations “…contribute to conflict, and in some cases to incitement.” They also use innuendo, such as listing a host of groups “some of which support boycotts, divestment and sanctions” while intentionally including groups who do not support such measures.

This sort of chicanery is meant to not only shield Israel from unfair criticism, which is a laudable goal, but also to discredit legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and actions, which is not. But in fairness, they couldn’t do that if they weren’t getting a lot of help from human rights and other groups.

Israel is in fact unfairly singled out, for example, at the UN Human Rights Council, as the only country in the world under permanent review. Israel’s very real human rights violations are often used cynically for political gain, much as Israel’s own complaints about Arab human rights violations are.

Additionally, Israel has its own very well developed human rights community, part of a larger and vibrant Israeli civil society. Israel’s human rights violations are thus held up to scrutiny more than other countries. The US frequently contends with the same issue. Still, if the violations weren’t so severe, Israel would not have so much to worry about.

NGO Monitor turns this stunning example of the reality of Israeli democracy into a smear against those Israelis who try to hold Israel to the standards of its own high ideals. By asking why such groups as B’Tselem, Gisha, Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence and others do not raise issues of intra-Palestinian violations (which some of them do, often), they are intentionally framing these Israeli groups as having an innately Palestinian agenda.

In fact, those groups, as well as Israeli peace groups like Shalom Achshav or Gush Shalom, are distinctly Israeli, and act as the critics any democracy needs to function properly. Naturally, being Israeli groups, they focus much more strongly on Israeli human rights violations because their task is to improve Israeli society and policies.

Consider, for example, NGO Monitor’s criticism of B’Tselem: B’Tselem categorizes suicide bombings and rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians as "war crimes" and "a grave breach of the right to life", according to international humanitarian law. Yet its political agenda is evident in the minimal attention it gives to intra-Palestinian human rights abuses (including torture, extra-judicial executions and abductions).

One need only look at B’Tselem’s web site to see it is a leader among non-Palestinian groups in criticizing intra-Palestinian abuses (see: http://www.btselem.org/English/Inter_Palestinian_Violations/), some even argue they are more so than an Israeli group should be. But indeed, B’Tselem focuses much more on Israeli violations and this does shed light on B’Tselem’s “agenda”: it is, primarily concerned about the actions of its own country, of strengthening the democracy it is part of. Its reason for existing is not primarily the good of the Palestinians—that is for Palestinians to pursue. It is for the good of Israel, because no democracy can sustain itself while turning a blind eye to its own behavior.

A major feature of NGO Monitor’s work is tying their criticisms (which are, to be fair, themselves a mix of distortions with a few legitimate complaints) to the network of governments and foundations that fund NGOs. This has come to the fore in recent weeks with the group Shovrim Shtika (Breaking the Silence).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the Dutch government to review their funding of Shovrim Shtika in the wake of the group publishing testimonies of soldiers who fought in Gaza earlier this year and reported human rights abuses. He has also publicly blasted the group.

Operation Cast Lead as a whole has been a storm for Israel to weather, and one that is unlikely to end soon. Israel’s refusal to launch a credible, independent investigation of the accusations that have been made about its conduct in Gaza, or to cooperate with any outside investigations, makes it impossible to get past the issue and ensures it will continue to be raised.

So instead, try to attack the funding.

Israeli NGOs are particularly vulnerable to such attacks. Funding for Israeli groups comes in very great measure from outside the country. That’s true for all Israeli groups, right to left, across the political and ideological spectrum. Israel lacks the sort of vast philanthropic network that, for instance, the United States has. Nor does the government allot significant sums for non-profits as one finds in Europe. In the US, lower taxes and tax breaks sustain a culture of philanthropy, while in Europe, higher taxes means the governments take more care of charitable giving. In Israel, though, the higher taxes pay instead for a massive defense budget.

So, just as foundations and other community sources in the US are the primary source for many right-wing groups in Israel, so too are international foundations the source of human rights and left-wing groups’ funding.

This isn’t foreign interference in Israeli affairs, it is the system of non-profit operations Israel has set up. And the attack on only one side of this system is unfair. NGO Monitor and similar groups should indeed be there to “watch the watchers,” but not to defend the Israeli government in any and all cases. Such groups should be there as part of the democratic system, and they should be there to ensure that human rights and peace groups’ work is of the highest standards, as those groups do with the government.

Until they stop pursuing an ideological agenda, the “watchers” are not doing their jobs.

It is difficult to believe that three weeks ago the main news item in Israel was Netanyahu’s endorsement of the two state solution. Notwithstanding the coverage his Bar Ilan address received, within days, it had largely slipped from public consciousness. While Obama’s Cairo speech continues to reverberate throughout the Middle East, the Israeli prime minister’s so-called acceptance of the "leftist" program has left no marks. The dismissive reception that Netanyahu received when he traveled to Europe afterwards, coupled with persistently blatant demands—even from Silvio Berlusconi—to cease all settlement construction in the Occupied Territories shows how little Netanyahu was taken seriously by Israel's so-called best friends.

Recent developments in the Mideast and, more specifically, the unfolding political crisis in Iran, could only spuriously be blamed for the Israeli public's alleged amnesia. The actual culprit: the internal dynamics of Israeli political culture and its observation of its own deeply ingrained rituals. Benjamin Netanyahu had simply undertaken what has become a necessary exercise for every new prime minister, in particular those who trace their political roots to the Likud Party. Like Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon before him (and Rabin, Peres and Barak, the leaders of the Labor Party before them), Netanyahu was forced to renounce the vision of one big Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and embrace the idea of a sovereign Palestinian state.

The other components of Netanyahu's speech are likewise highly routinized. Such a speech must reference the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel, (he did that) and note the current threats to its existence (Iran). It is likewise necessary to assert that Israel has always endeavored to resolve the conflict with its neighbors, and that the blame for the failure of these endeavors lies with the other side (the Palestinians). One must also enumerate Israel’s preconditions for future negotiations—the other party should recognize Israel as a Jewish state, give up its claims over Jerusalem, withdraw its demand for the right of return for refugees and agree to a demilitarization, and begin negotiations without preconditions.

Reactions to Netanyahu's “change of heart” by members of Israel’s political establishment were also equally predictable. Whereas politicians and activists from the right clamored and protested the Prime Minister's words as a sell-out to the Americans, a capitulation to the left, etc. etc., the Israeli center and Zionist left rooted for Netanyahu's bold, groundbreaking move. Whereas the settlers and their allies continue to tighten their grip over the territories designated for a future Palestinian state, the Israeli center and left, now satisfied that its position is universally accepted, awaits further international pressure that would force Israel's leader to undertake serious action.

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because it is. The empty, highly ritualistic character of the affair - the announcement of 'new position', followed by predictable responses, and, ultimately, an unchanged status quo on the ground - leaves little room for interpretation. These are all simply gestures, and hollow ones at that, which do nothing other than cover up a fundamental commitment to maintaining the occupation by all of Israel's major political parties.

One need only think of the settlement project to gauge how persistent and widespread this commitment truly is. In the seventeen years since Israel was first coerced (by the administration of George Bush Sr.) to acknowledge Palestinian national rights on the west bank of the Jordan, the number of Jewish settlers residing in the Occupied Territories (excluding the Golan Heights) has nearly tripled, much of it under the guise of “natural growth.” It should be recalled time and again in this context that Labor governments were at fault as much, if not more, than Likud and Kadima governments in nurturing this so-called “natural growth,” as was the international community, in its ultimate consent to this situation as well.

Under these circumstances, the reaction of the Israeli left has been consistently troubling. Despite appearances, progressives are as responsible for the current state of affairs as the Israeli right. While most Israelis continue to express their support for a two state solution, only a handful of radicals on the left acknowledge that it is not a magic spell, and cannot not be realized without Israelis paying a huge price for its prosecution.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis would have to be relocated; precious resources, water in particular, would have to be ceded; the Israeli economy would stand to suffer, at least initially, great losses once it loses one of its biggest (captive) markets; and Israel would have to bear the lion's share of the cost not only for the rebuilding of the Palestinian infrastructure and economy which, in the past decade, it has brought to a standstill, but also for the resettlement of those Palestinian refugees who would not be allowed into Israel.

While most Israelis are willing to grant Palestinians a state, they are willing to do so under the illusion that if this is to happen (and most don't believe it actually will), Israel would immediately benefit from it, while others, namely, the settlers, the Palestinians, and the international community, would underwrite the human and monetary price for it.

The Israeli left is equally to blame for failing to acknowledge that the implementation of a peace agreement would not be a "peaceful parting of ways", as the Peace Now slogan once proclaimed but, will be painful,  even traumatic. Simultaneously, the Israeli left has failed to educate the Israeli public about the cost of maintaining indefinite control over the Occupied Territories, not only for Palestinians, but also for Israelis themselves. Thus, the persistence of the two state solution in Israeli politics is not a mark of political pragmatism but, rather, of continuous ideological blindness.

Herein lies the effectiveness of public rituals such as Netanyahu's two state speech. Despite the parliamentary powerlessness of the left, the Israeli public still follows its ideological lead, as Netanyahu’s growing approval rating following his Bar Ilan address shows. Widespread support accorded to the two state solution by Israelis turns it into something to which it is worth paying lip service. At the same time, affirming support for the two state solution also disingenuously promotes the false notion that peace does not require any effort or concessions either.

It is in this context that we should remember Ariel Sharon’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza. The disastrous outcome of that move must be traced to Sharon and Olmert’s belief that Israel could force a resolution such that its cost for Israelis would be largely contained, limited to the 8,000 or so Jewish settlers that were relocated to Israel, and to the Palestinians who would bear the brunt of the Israeli redeployment. From an Israeli perspective, the relocation of a handful of settlers seemed like a truly meager price to pay particularly in comparison to the growing difficulties of military operations in the defense of such a small community. What the four years since the implementation of Sharon’s plan have shown us is that the cost cannot be easily contained, and that all involved continue to pay a huge price, some much more dearly than others.

Due to its myriad failings, the Israeli left has once again pinned its hope on outsiders, on the international community, and on the US in particular, both to bear the cost of the resolution of the larger conflict (and thus make the bitter pill more palatable) as well as to force Israel to resume some measure of responsibility for what others will not pay on its behalf. As this pressure mounts and yields some results (for example, the pressure recently exerted by the Obama administration), and as the Israeli government is forced to announce partial limits on construction in Jewish settlements, celebratory voices are again being heard on the left. Yet, the Israeli left's fundamentally passive attitude remains dangerously unchanged.

Until Israeli progressives confront such paralyzing limitations, and do more than simply produce useful rhetoric that can be coopted to uphold the status quo, it will remain impossible to imagine an end to six decades of war with the Palestinians. That's why it remains up to Israelis to decide whether they are truly willing to pay the price for resolving this conflict. As long as Israelis continue to think of the resolution of the conflict in utopian terms, notwithstanding the pressure that the US and the international community periodically puts on Israel to reinvigorate the peace process, the “two state solution” is going to remain an ideology, periodically pronounced in ritualized speeches, with little effect on the lives of Jews and Palestinians in the region.

שלום עכשיו: organizing stickers for peace nowAnother week, another protest against Israelis on University campuses. In the last few years, Jewish students have become accustomed to campaigns against virtually anything Israeli–from avocados and computer chips to professors. But this time it’s an Israeli peace activist who found that she was unwelcome at the University of Texas’ Hillel House, where she was due to speak yesterday.

Hagit Ofran, from Peace Now, the left-of-center group which campaigns for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, is due to give a series of talks aimed at Jewish students entitled, "Israel at 60: Settlements, The U.S., The Peace Process, and the Last Chance for a Two State Solution." An alternative location at the University was eventually found after Texas Hillel pulled out, but the incident underlies tensions between Jewish students on US campuses.

One of the organizers had this to say: “Texas Hillel is supposed to be a space for Jewish students, however, and we will work with Hillel staff and involved students with whom we may differ politically to hold Texas Hillel to its stated commitment to pluralism… we care about and support Israel but do not feel represented by the current dominant mode of Israel advocacy, which we find to be counterproductive.”

Hagit Ofran: banned from hillel

Earlier this week, I chatted with Ofran in the back of a minibus as we made our way from Jerusalem to a Tel Aviv exhibition marking 30 years since the Peace Now movement was founded . Mild-mannered and articulate, she’s proof that you don’t have to see eye-to-eye with someone to hold a civilized discussion.

Last year the Zionist Organization of America tried to expel the Union of Progressive Zionists, who organized Ofran’s speaking tour, from the Israel on Campus Coalition following their links with another Israeli peace group, Breaking the Silence.

There is a heavy irony surrounding the decision of a Hillel House to bar a visiting Israeli, not to mention the efforts of far-left anti-Zionist groups who have been calling to exclude academics and other Israelis from campus life. It brings to mind the delights of Israeli Apartheid Week and the occasional noises made by a handful of my brethren in Britain—before I made aliya last summer—under the banner of ‘Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods’.

Regardless of what position one takes vis-à-vis Israeli politics, it’s a sad day when those who love Israel find themselves adopting the same defensive tactics as those who don't.

Last Saturday evening, I attended a memorial for Peace Now activist Emil Grunzweig, a young scholar of democratic theory who was killed by a disturbed rightist’s grenade in February, 1983, at a demonstration in front of the prime minister’s office. Ten years ago, the fifteenth anniversary of his death, hundreds came. This time, a few dozen, perhaps.

Many have noticed the decline in the profile of Israel’s peace movement during the past 20 years. What could be expected when Israelis are so obviously spurned in the region and under attack by bombers and missiles? Does it not seem unrealistic to expect a peace movement to get traction without a change in Arab attitudes?

Imagine, though, the effect of an Arab leader coming to the Knesset today and delivering a speech like the one given by Anwar Sadat on November 20, 1977. Apart from the stirring compassion of the speech, notice Sadat’s approach to the so-called “core issues,” now ostensibly being negotiated under the Annapolis framework. They are, more or less, the lines of policy one has heard for years from the Palestine Authority and from the Arab League’s 2002 initiative.

Which brings me back to the Israeli peace movement. The waning of interest in Peace Now seems much more the result of its belated success than its failure. Why take to the streets when the government, and the broad center—Tel-Aviv, professionals, the more educated—now espouse your approach, if only in principle? How different are Peace Now’s ideas—and Sadat’s, for that matter—from the approach Ehud Olmert’s close friend Vice-Premier Haim Ramon has hinted at in various interviews?

Menachem Begin, remember, responded to Sadat with a vision of a region in which “we shall all live together—the Great Arab Nation in its States and its countries, and the Jewish People in its Land, Eretz Israel—forever and ever.” This was code for the Likud’s platform. (Here is Begin’s whole speech: judge for yourself.) There was no occupation to acknowledge in Begin’s response. Israel would deal with the Arab states, not with the Arab stateless. Jerusalem, too, belonged to the Jews; other religions would have access to their holy places.

Nor was there a Palestinian people. (“I invite genuine spokesmen of the Palestinian Arabs” to come along with King Hussein, etc.; I remember distinctly that Begin used the Hebrew phrase Arviyeh Eretz Yisrael, “the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael,” though it is translated differently here.) “We took no foreign land,” Begin instructed Sadat; “We returned to our Homeland. The bond between our People and this Land is eternal.” Oppose this way of looking at Jewish history, Begin went on, and you were being cavalier about the holocaust.

The key to all of this was settlements. Eretz Yisrael still beckoned. Then, the number of Jewish settlers beyond Jerusalem and Gush Etzion was only about 2000; by 1979, 6000. Today it is a quarter of a million. I remember thinking that Sadat’s face said it all: listening to Begin, he looked as stricken as many of us felt.

And it was in response to Begin’s response that 348 junior officers signed a letter imploring the prime minister to seize the moment. Their letter launched Peace Now, and prompted demonstrations that numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the late 7os and eraly 80s.

PEACE NOW'S EFFORTS did not save the ensuing peace process, which foundered largely on the settlements policy. Settlements precluded any implementation of the Palestinian autonomy plan that Sadat and President Carter extracted from Begin at Camp David. They were the reason why Sadat refused to travel to Oslo with Begin to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. They were a major reason for the collapse of Oslo. Olmert has claimed to have stopped settlements, too—though not within the extensive boundaries of Jerusalem. His policy is too little and far too late.

The real problem, now, is nothing Peace Now activists can do anything about. They have won the battle of public opinion in Israel, at least among those who are not in the third of the country for whom the process of forming opinions is itself suspect.

Olmert knows what he must do eventually, but he likes his job, and does not like enraging the residents of Jerusalem, who support the settlers, and who make up a good many of the third in question; he continues to develop Jerusalem’s suburbs across the Green Line and pander to Shas, his rightist coalition ally, while undermining the already shaken reputation of Mahmud Abbas. He has asked, and apparently got, assurances from Secretary Rice that the US will back his desire to leave this problem of Jerusalem “to last,” as if there is a first that can be negotiated without including East Jerusalem in Palestine’s borders. As if blurriness about US policy and interests helps him.

Haaretz chief editor David Landau, for one, had enough a little while back . He told Rice in Jerusalem that his "wet dream” would be that the US “raped” Israel, that is, simply imposed a settlement. Landau may have broken protocol (and also revealed the repressed state of mind of former British yeshiva students). Anyway, he lost his job last week. But what the peace negotiations need, at least for now, is not just a clear head but a strong hand. And the US—still unable to grasp that in getting tough about the shape of a deal it is actually strengthening Israeli leaders who claim the need for peace now—is getting hustled for the 30th year in row.

* Cross-posted at BernardAvishai.com