Billboards bashing social justice NGO dot Tel Aviv

The far-right movement Im Tirzu began a smear campaign against the New Israel Fund last week. The timing offers further evidence of the pivotal role Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plays in fanning flames of hate in Israel.

On April 2, in response to pressure from the conservative right, Netanyahu went back on a deal with the UN he had announced just hours earlier for Israel to take in some of the illegal immigrants already in the country. A day later, to divert attention from criticism of his zigzagging, he took the same tactic he generally uses to extricate himself from trouble: blaming either the Arabs or liberals. This time, he accused the New Israel Fund, a US-based nonprofit dedicated to social justice and equality, of foiling an agreement with African states to accept asylum-seekers that Israel deports. The organization, he explained, was responsible for Rwanda's decision to withdraw from a previous agreement on the matter and therefore it "jeopardizes the security and future of the State of Israel as the country of the Jewish people."

Now, not a month later, Im Tirzu has put billboards up throughout Tel Aviv to inform all those who haven't gotten the prime minister’s message that the people of the New Israel fund are traitors. The billboards feature illustrations of an Israeli soldier with the caption, “Yotam Zilber, a paratrooper fighter,” and one of the fund's president, Talia Sasson, captioned, “New Israel Fund is fighting against Yotam.” The message is clear: Zilber is one of us. Sasson is not. A computer game asks players to help Zilber escape from the left-wing organizations leading him into the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

Rami Hod of the Berl Katznelson Fund and Michael Manekin of the Partnership Fund for Israel’s Future have lodged a complaint with police accusing Im Tirzu of incitement. “Im Tirzu is a front organization for Netanyahu serving as the sewage pipe through which anti-Semitic campaigns are funneled from Europe to Israel. The blood that will be spilled here will be on their hands and the hand of their sender,” the complainants said. Im Tirzu Chair Matan Peleg said in response, “Im Tirzu will continue to unmask the real face of those striving for the State of Israel’s disintegration from within.”