New Israel Fund draws up dedicated democracy reserve
US-based group warns Israeli democracy under threat from the right, aims to advance progressive ideas in Jewish state
The New Israel Fund is setting up dedicated funding to advance democracy in Israel, which it depicts as under threat from the ultra-nationalist right.
The focus of the US-based NIF — since its establishment in 1979 — has been civil society development, and the group has for years encouraged democracy programs, but the group said in a statement last week that recent anti-democratic trends in the country required a sharper focus.
“Overt racism, ultra-nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise,” the statement said. “NIF’s leadership believes that these trends are no accident, but are intentionally encouraged and accelerated by a well-funded, interconnected network of institutions advocating the viewpoints of the ultra-nationalist right.”
The initiative, dubbed NIF-D, for New Initiatives for Democracy, has so far garnered $2 million of the agency’s 2014 overall $30 million budget.
A focus will be think tanks advancing progressive ideas, including Molad, the Center for Renewal of Israeli Democracy; Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies; and the Council for Peace and Security.