Why does NIF support so many Arab organizations in Israel?
The New Israel Fund was among the first funders of Arab civil society in Israel – the organizations that have won groundbreaking victories for civil and human rights for Israel’s most disenfranchised minority. As documented by the Israeli government in the Or Commission Report, the 20% of Israel’s citizens who are Arab have suffered de facto and de jure discrimination since the founding of the state. The New Israel Fund serves on the steering committee of the Task Force for Israeli-Arab Issues, a group that includes many American Jewish mainstream groups who have come to recognize the importance of this issue. We support Arab as well as joint Jewish-Arab civil society organizations that work to protect and promote the rights of Arab citizens on issues ranging from land and water rights to equal access to education, employment and housing. Our work in the Bedouin community, Israel’s most impoverished, has resulted in the recognition of previously unrecognized villages and the slow but s
