‘Massive political awakening’
She drew a broad parallel with Australia's Indigenous reconciliation process. "I see Australia is doing that now, several hundred years after bad things happened."
NAOMI Chazan, high-profile former president of the New Israel Fund (NIF), is set to visit Australia to address the liberally-oriented organisation’s Australian supporters.
The professor (emerita) of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and former deputy speaker of the Knesset has visited Australia multiple times. On a Knesset committee probing the 1997 Maccabiah Bridge collapse, she championed reparations to Australian athletes affected by the tragedy.
Interviewed by The AJN before her trip, Chazan spoke of competing visions of Israel’s diverse communities, which “have to be accommodated somehow”. She drew a broad parallel with Australia’s Indigenous reconciliation process. “I see Australia is doing that now, several hundred years after bad things happened.”
Chazan described Israel’s popular resistance to curbs on the powers of its courts as “probably the most massive political awakening since the creation of the state”, citing polls that over half the nation sees the judicial changes as “an existential threat to Israeli democracy”.
But the judicial makeover is “a minor element” in a multi-faceted revolt, she said. Israelis are angry on a number of fronts, including the economy and the cost of living, particularly after this month’s NIS 13.7 billion ($A5.6 billion) government allocation to ultra-Orthodox communities.
Asked why Israelis have edged towards the political right, Chazan said the trend had its wellsprings in the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit, the second intifada, and the inefficacy of the Israeli left. To an extent, the demographic growth of Charedi communities has played a role.
Prompted about frequent accusations by organisations such as NGO Monitor that NIF funds NGOs which support anti-Israel BDS, Chazan described NGO Monitor’s strategy as “guilt by association”.
But pressed on whether an NGO’s embrace of BDS “should be a dealbreaker” for NIF funding, Chazan simply responded, “NIF has never supported BDS activities of its grantees.”
In 2010, Israeli organisation Im Tirtzu demonised Chazan in a cartoon portraying her with a horn on her forehead in a play on the Hebrew word for “fund”, accusing NIF of bankrolling some Israeli NGOs that had contributed to the controversial UN Goldstone report into the 2009 Israel-Gaza conflict.
NIF Australia CEO Michael Chaitow emphatically added, “We don’t support BDS or organisations that support BDS campaigns.”
Israel in Crisis: A Conversation with Naomi Chazan will take place on Wednesday, May 31, 7.30pm at Memo Music Hall, 88 Acland Street, St Kilda. Contact Max Korman on max@nif.org.au ; 0402 180 077.
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