http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147525#.TmSqEWqHVEU A senior New Israel Fund officer (NIF) told a U.S. official in 2010 that the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy, according to a document that was leaked by Wikileaks.
The officer is Hedva Radovanitz, who was at the time (February 2010) NIF Associate Director in Israel, according to the document.
The document relates to the attempts to pass a law that would demand transparency of political NGOs operating in Israel that are funded by foreign countries. An American diplomatic officer interviewed Radovanitz and heard her bemoaning the state of Israel's Left:
New Israel Fund (NIF) Associate Director in Israel Hedva Radovanitz, who manages grants to 350 NGOs totaling about 18 million dollars per year, told PolOff [presumably an abbreviation for "political office" or "political officer" – Ed.] on February 23 that the campaign against the NGOs was due to the "disappearance of the political left wing" in Israel and the lack of domestic constituency for the NGOs. She noted that when she headed ACRI's Tel Aviv office, ACRI had 5,000 members, while today it has less than 800, and it was only able to muster about 5,000 people to its December human rights march by relying on the active staff of the 120 NGOs that participated. Radovanitz commented that the NIF was working behind the scenes through many NGOs to prevent the NGO legislation from passing in its current form.
The cable then quotes Radovanitz's prediction for Israel's future thus:
She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.
Radovanitz also outlines the future plans of the NIF:
She also said the NIF was currently re-evaluating its strategy and was hoping to create a movement rather than just a lot of NGOs. She said the NIF had no plans to build a human rights constituency within the right wing of Israeli society, though she believed politics had shifted to the right for the foreseeable future.
The NIF has been operating since the 1980s and has been at the focus of extreme controversy in the last three years. It was accused of manufacturing unfounded and damning anti-IDF quotes that were used extensively by the UN's Goldstone Commission to blame Israel for the Gaza counter-terror campaign that began in late 2008.
Israel's leading pro-Arab NGOs are funded by the NIF. Many of them testified before the Goldstone Commission.
In response to a report on the statement quoted by Wikileaks, the New Israel Fund told Maariv that "Mrs. Hedva Radovanitz is no longer employed at the New Israel Fund and therefore we do not know her personal opinion on the subject of the Jewish majority on Israel."
"We stress that the statements attributed to the Fund in the news report do not reflect the formal position of the NIF," the organization said. "The NIF's position is that an agreed solution of two states for two nations should be arrived at. This is based upon its belief in the principle of the Jewish nation's right to self determination and the principle of commitment to full equality to all citizens and communities, which are anchored in the Declaration of Independence."
http://www.cablegatesearch.net/search.php?q=nif&sort=1 Radovanitz commented that the NIF was working behind the scenes through many NGOs to prevent the NGO legislation from passing in its current form. She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic. She also said the NIF was currently re-evaluating its strategy and was hoping to create a movement rather than just a lot of NGOs
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2011/09/05/lori-lowenthal-marcus-for-z-street-new-israel-funds-vision-for-a-more-democratic-israel-arab-majority/
Topic: Head of Leftist NIF demise of Israel no big deal wiki leaks (Read 487 times)