Activities
NGO Monitor states that its mission is to "end the practice used by certain self-declared ‘humanitarian NGOs’ of exploiting the label ‘universal human rights values’ to promote politically and ideologically motivated agendas".
NGO Monitor maintains an online directory of NGOs worldwide, which generally includes a description of each organization, a quote from the organization itself, its funding sources, and relevant quotes about the organization from publications and officials. NGO Monitor also has considerable material related to the first Durban Conference and the Durban strategy of divestment and boycott, as well as considerable discussion regarding the 2009 Durban Review Conference.
NGO Monitor staff have co-authored two books relating to NGOs: Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGO Fact-Finding (with founder and president, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitor's Legal Advisor Anne Herzberg, and NGO Monitor's Best Practices Legal Fellow, Jordan Berman) and The Goldstone Report 'Reconsidered': A Critical Analysis (with Prof. Steinberg and Anne Herzberg).
With the stated aim of encouraging critical debate on the role of NGOs in the Middle East conflict, NGO Monitor held a 2006 conference in Jerusalem with 21 humanitarian aid groups in attendance. A panel discussed the pros and cons of NGOs dealing with Hamas. NGOs such as Amnesty International, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights were invited to speak but declined. Amnesty International said the conference did "not give a balanced ground for open and fair dialogue" while another human rights group accused NGO Monitor of "partiality".
NGO Monitor has criticized several major international human rights organizations, such as Christian Aid, for ignoring "Palestinian responsibility in the conflict" and minimizing "Israel’s right to self-defense." Other NGOs under the microscope have been Amnesty International, Oxfam, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Human Rights Watch.
In 2009, NGO Monitor published a monograph called “Experts or Ideologues: Systematic Analysis of Human Rights Watch” which includes analysis of key HRW staff members, five case studies of HRW campaigns, and quantitative analysis comparing HRW publications in the Middle East, covering the period from 2002 to 2009. In April 2010, Benjamin Birnbaum published in The New Republic a lengthy and highly critical piece about HRW, on the same line of the research done by NGO Monitor, stating that HRW gives "disproportionate attention to Israeli misdeeds."
NGO Monitor released a document comparing Amnesty International's response to the twenty years of ethnic, religious and racial violence during the Second Sudanese Civil War to their treatment of Israel. NGO Monitor said that Amnesty International issued 7 reports on Sudan, as opposed to 39 reports on Israel. They further said: “While ignoring the large-scale and systematic bombing and destruction of Sudanese villages, AI issued numerous condemnations of the razing of Palestinian houses, most of which were used as sniper nests or belonged to terrorists. Although failing to decry the slaughter of thousands of civilians by Sudanese government and allied troops, AI managed to criticize Israel’s ‘assassinations’ of active terrorist leaders.” NGO Monitor also wrote there were 52 reports on Sudan and 192 reports on Israel. NGO Monitor opined “this lack of balance and objectivity and apparent political bias is entirely inconsistent with AI's official stated mission.”
The organization formerly criticized the Ford Foundation for funding the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance which took place in Durban, South Africa, which it accuses of condoning violence against Israel. The Ford Foundation has modified its policies regarding funding of NGOs. It also has taken exception to such accusations and says its involvement in the Palestinian territories reflects its belief that a just solution to the conflict is vitally important to the region and the peoples directly affected and that it also funds groups such as the New Israel Fund.
NGO Monitor also states that B'Tselem, an NGO that calls itself "The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories", has employed "abusive and demonizing rhetoric designed to elicit political support for Palestinians".
NGO Monitor has criticized the New Israel Fund, which states that its primary objective is "to strengthen Israel's democracy", for funding organizations that NGO Monitor says are engaged in a "campaign to delegitimize Israel." These arguments were denied by the ex-president of the New Israel Fund and law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Peter Edelman, who described NGO Monitor's criticism as "un-democratic and un-Jewish" and "inherently and fundamentally flawed." Larry Garber, then Executive Director of the New Israel Fund, and Eliezer Yaari, then NIF's Israel Director and a retired Israeli air force major, wrote in an op-ed for The Jerusalem Post that if Israel were to accept the premises of Gerald Steinberg, the director of NGO Monitor, then "Israel's credibility - and, more important, the nation's morality - will suffer." Ongoing public debate in 2009 and 2010 about the NIF's funding practices continues, with NGO Monitor calling for the NIF to draw a firm line regarding funding those organizations which "support activities designed to promote the NGO Durban strategy to isolate Israel." NGO Monitor decried NIF’s use of “uncivil rhetroric” including being accused of "McCarthyism", being called “extremist”, and more.
On October 12, 2006, NGO Monitor made a submission to the government of the United Kingdom on the funding of Israeli NGOs.
On August 31, 2009, NGO Monitor made a submission to Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, regarding "Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the “Durban Strategy”: The Emergence of an Antisemitic Global Movement" explaining in detail the Canadian government funding for NGOs promoting the Durban Strategy.
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Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
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