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Contents:
Why did Dennis Ross Roll Out
the Red Carpet to Welcome the Fateh Tanzim in
Washington? Dennis Ross, the special Middle East coordinator during the Clinton administrations from 1993 to 2001, and now the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the new head of the "Jewish People Policy Planning Institute" of the Jewish Agency, brought three leaders of the Fatah Tanzim to Washington, D.C., to advance their cause with the U.S. Congress and with various Jewish organizations. That is what I heard on the Saturday night late night broadcast of the Voice of Israel Radio last week. The next news item on that late night Voice of Israel Radio reported a drive by terror attack north of Jerusalem, where the same Fatah Tanzim took credit for wounding the driver . . . except that the driver riding with Israeli license plates was a Palestinian Arab driving a stolen Israeli vehicle. The Fatah Tanzim apologized for shooting the wrong guy, who meanwhile was getting treatment in an Israeli hospital. Meanwhile, the Fatah Tanzim were more efficient on Sunday evening because just as their leaders were landing in Washington, they laid an ambush for an Israeli army foot patrol north of Jerusalem, where they wounded four young Israeli soldiers and then executed three of them while their fourth buddy was writhing in his wounds in the bushes nearby. Earlier that same day, the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) issued results of a poll which boasted that 75 percent of the Palestinian Arab population endorsed the October 3rd Arab terror suicide bombing in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, in which 21 Israeli men, women and children were murdered. The JMCC, set up by the Fatah Tanzim and funded in part by the European Union, runs these polls through recorded personal interviews with families, with no confidentiality assured in any discrete method of polling. In other words, the interviewee expresses what the Fatah Tanzim wants the media to hear . . . which is that the Palestinian Arab people favor continuing the campaign of premeditated, cold blooded murder that has plagued Israel for the past three years. Yet for some reason, Dennis Ross, who is supposed to be one of the leading experts in Middle East research, somehow posits that the Fatah Tanzim represent a force of "moderating influence." Writing in the Baltimore Sun on June 24, 2003, Dennis Ross wrote that the "activists of Fatah, the Tanzim, who led the first intifada more than a decade ago and who have played an instrumental role in this one, believe that it's time for change. In meetings with several Tanzim leaders, I heard: Force cannot work on Israelis or Palestinians." For whatever reason, Ross ignores the reality of the Fatah Tanzim, who have taken "credit" for the vast majority of the 18,000 Arab terror attacks that have been inflicted on Israel over the past three years, which have claimed the lives of 897 men, women and children. The four Fatah Tanzim who have been Ross' "guests" this week in Washington have directed that very murder campaign. Hatem Abed Al-Khader, one of Ross' "guests," stated in a news interview on Israel's Independence Day to a Palestinian Authority publication that, "We have no objection to suicide attacks, so long as these attacks advance our purposes." (Source: www.amin.org, on May 15, 2002). Achmed Renam, another of Ross' "guests" in Washington, wrote in a news article in the Jordanian publication Al Hadej on June 25, 2001 that: "We have the right to fight Israel. We will choose the way in which we defend ourselves." During his eight-year tenure as the special Middle East coordinator during the Clinton administration, from 1993 to 2001, Ross acted as the salesman of Clinton's Middle East "peace package" to the world. It would seem that Ross continues to do so, as he spent the better part of Monday and Tuesday escorting his "guests" to meet leading congressmen and congressional aides and Middle East policy makers. The height of Ross's visit was the meeting that Ross organized for the leaders of the Fatah Tanzim with David Satterfield, the Deputy Asst. Secretary of State. The only question is whether the FBI and the INS should have met Ross' cherished Fatah Tanzim instead of the leading policy makers and congressmen in Washington. The consistent premise of the U.S.-sponsored Oslo Process, Road Map, Mitchell Plan and Tenet Plan was that all negotiations with the representatives of the PLO and its Palestinian National Authority were to be predicated on the absolute commitment of the Palestinian Arab interlocutors to cease and desist from advocating the murder of Jews. Dennis Ross has ignored that premise, even though he was the architect of the very premises of the current Middle East "peace" process.
Fatah Officials Visiting
Washington: Illogical to Dismantle Armed Factions
The Jerusalem Times (independent Palestinian weekly) 30 October 2003 www.jerusalem-times.net/article/news/details/detail.asp?id=4298 Three Senior Fateh Officials ended up a one week visit to Washington last Friday for talks with US officials without any major result. The delegation included lawmakers Hatem Abdel Qader, Qadora Fares, and Member of Fateh Higher Committee Ahmad Ghaneim. The visit was "important and constructive" and aimed to get U.S support for a mutual truce with Israel, Ghaneim told The Jerusalem Times adding that he and his colleagues met with David Satterfield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, Dennis Ross, a Former Middle East Envoy, and American Jewish leaders. We discussed with US officials different issues, including the dismantling of armed factions and lifting the siege on President Yasser Arafat, the elected and legitimate Palestinian leader, he said. "We clarified to US officials that these factions are part of the Palestinian society and the demand to dismantle them is illogical and meaningless." We stressed that only a mutual truce will end violence and revive peace process, but disarming factions will push for a civil war, which is totally unacceptable, Ghaneim added. Fateh officials raised PNA objections to Israel's construction of the separation wall that cuts deep into the Palestinian areas and undermines President Bush's vision for a two state solution. They also discussed with the Americans the unofficial peace accord concluded last week between left-wing Israeli and senior Palestinian politicians. The deal known as "Geneva Accord" calls for Israeli pullout from 1967 land and dismantling major settlement blocs, while Palestinians would waive the right of return to 3.6 million refugees to their property inside Israel. But they succeeded to explain the Palestinian position on the issues hindering the implementation of roadmap. "We felt understanding for our position, but we need to increase the efforts to face the Israeli allegations and reactivate the US role to push with peace process forward," he concluded. The Jewish Lobby had anticipated the visit by a campaign describing the officials as terrorist aides to the President Arafat and calling on US officials to boycott them.
The Ford Foundation - New
Israel Fund Axis NGO Monitor Analysis (Vol. 2 No. 3) 23 October 2003 Ford Foundation - New Israel Fund Alliance The Ford Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic bodies in the world, has announced a $20 million peace and social justice fund in partnership with the New Israel Fund. Both organizations are already major players in the Middle East. Since its 1979 founding, NIF has given more than $120 million to 700 Israeli Jewish and Arab groups and Ford donates some $13m annually. Both the Ford Foundation and the New Israel Fund, however, have come under heavy criticism for funding highly political NGOs whose activities contradict their mission statements. Ford, for example, has funded groups such as Miftah, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network. The New Israel Fund funds groups such as Adalah, the Arab Association for Human Rights and 'Ilam. An article on the new alliance can be found below.
Ford Foundation Joins Jewish Social Justice Group NEW YORK, October 14 (JTA) The Ford Foundation is steering its drive for progressive Israeli causes into a new philanthropic vehicle that partners with a Jewish group. Ford is rolling out a $20 million peace and social-justice fund in partnership with the Washington-based New Israel Fund, the groups have announced. "This grant to the New Israel Fund will increase our funding in Israel and help build the capacity of civic organizations vital to strengthening its democracy," Susan Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation, said in a statement. A panel made up of members of the Ford Foundation, the NIF and recipients of past Ford grants in Israel will advise the fund, whose grants will be awarded over five years. By shifting control of its Israel-related philanthropy to a Jewish group, Ford could blaze a new philanthropic trail that other non-Jewish charities may follow, philanthropy experts say. "If others emulate this shift, as a model it becomes even more significant than as an isolated act and I hope it will," said Mark Charendoff, president of the Jewish Funders Network, an umbrella group of Jewish foundations. Fordīs idea also is a major boon to the New Israel Fund, which supports Israeli groups devoted to human and civil rights, economic and social justice, and religious pluralism. Since its 1979 founding, NIF has given more than $120 million to 700 Israeli Jewish and Arab groups. The NIF currently supports about 130 organizations. Among other efforts, it aids a Bedouin group, a shelter for battered Israeli Arab women and a lawyerīs group that advocates for civil rights. Fordīs move also represents an upgrade of Fordīs activities in Israel. In recent years, Ford has granted between $2 million and $2.5 million annually to Israeli-based peace and social-justice groups. Since 1948, Ford has granted $50 million to Israeli causes, Ford officials said. Among its recipients was the NIF, which has received $5 million since 1988. "This has an enormous effect, in that one of the worldīs great philanthropic organizations has the confidence to put their portfolio of giving in Israel with us," said Peter Edelman, the New York-based chairman of the NIF board. Of the $20 million Ford is giving over five years, $1 million will go directly into NIFīs $4 million endowment, adding significant capacity directly to the grant-maker itself. The bulk of the money will go toward donor-advised awards by the new Ford-NIF fund to Israeli Arab and Jewish groups, to the tune of between $3.4 million to $3.5 million annually. Directing the new fund will be Fordīs former program officer for Israel, Aaron Back, who will be responsible for recommending the grants, according to Bradford Smith, vice president of the Ford Foundationīs peace and social-justice programs. The NIF project does not affect Fordīs other Middle East activities, which are based in Cairo, Smith said. Those efforts, which he said amount to between $2 million and $2.5 million annually, aid such groups as Palestinian non-governmental organizations and universities in the West Bank and Gaza, and projects in Lebanon. Fordīs new philanthropic project is part of a global road map to move monies closer to their intended targets, Smith said. Similar moves are under way to direct Ford funds in Poland through a private foundation and in Cuba through a Mexican group. According to Charendoff, the move also allows Ford widely seen as the "gold standard" in the charitable foundation world to cut overhead and maintain current spending levels on programs at a time of shrinking endowment returns. The move "shows real leadership" on Fordīs part, he said. That Ford is sharing the driverīs seat with a Jewish group "is even more striking," Charendoff added.
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