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NIF’s not-so-hidden political agenda
Originally published 14 Aug 2003 in The Jerusalem Post

The New Israel Fund’s director, Eliezer Ya’ari, recently denied charges that his fund, and its Shatil subsidiary, are exploiting the single mothers’ protest to promote a radical leftist and anti-Zionist political agenda, and that they have patronizingly imposed the unelected Knafo group as “representative leadership.”

He insisted that the NIF is “an apolitical civic organization” assisting “social change” and human rights, providing a voice to weakened sectors. Ya’ari never defines what kind of “social change” the NIF promotes, but the fact that almost all of the many organizations Shatil has spawned among immigrants and “development-town” residents espouse a radical leftist ideology, while none are centrist or right, makes it clear.

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Poverty persists in Israel because the poor are manipulated
Originally published 31 Jul 2003 in The Jerusalem Post

	Shatil, established 1982 by the New Israel Fund

It is now certain. The heart-rending march of Vikki Knafo and the single mothers’ protest were not spontaneous but an effort organized and manipulated by several bodies with a political ax to grind.

One of the chief organizers of the protest, Vered Bracha Steinberg, helped secure for Knafo tents and food from Meretz and from the Histadrut, and transportation from the Modi’in municipality. According to her these bodies, and above all Shatil, the crypto-Marxist executive arm of The New Israel Fund, recognized the political potential of Knafo’s protest, and proceeded to cynically exploit it. By its own admission, Shatil used Knafo to foment a ‘social revolution’ designed at least to undermine Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms and perhaps even bring down Sharon’s government.

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A monopoly union’s upper hand
Originally published 24 Apr 2003 in The Jerusalem Post

	Amir Peretz MK (photo by Maariv)

Evil will often triumph not because of its innate strength but because good people are slow and laggard in resisting it.

This may also be the case with the struggle between the proponents of a vitally and urgently needed economic reform – a reform designed to save the Israeli economy from a disastrous Argentinean style collapse – and those Histadrut aparatchiks headed by Amir Peretz and the big public monopoly union bosses. They will stop at nothing to protect the extraordinary privileges they have extracted from the government.

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The Histadrut does care - for the monopoly unions
Originally published 10 Apr 2003 in The Jerusalem Post

The exploited Israeli worker needs protection. Our distorted economic system results in low productivity that offers measly wages to the workers, most of whom do not even earn the monthly average of $1,700 and have to receive supplemental income from the government to eke out a living.

What the Histadrut labor federation’s Amir Peretz neglects to disclose is that the workers mostly need to be protected from his Histadrut, which continues under his stewardship to be a regressive force inflicting great harm on workers, especially the lower-paid ones.

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Enemies of reform
Originally published 27 Mar 2003 in The Jerusalem Post

The government’s passage of a bold austerity program that will cut a bloated public sector is tribute to the determination and skill of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s courageous backing.

However, the battle for the confirmation of the program has just begun. All of Israel’s regressive elements, the putative champions of the poor and the powerful vested interests that brought the Israeli economy to the brink of economic disaster, will now do their best to destroy the program or whittle it down to the point of ineffectiveness.

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