Amid row over contentious ad, Jerusalem Post fires Naomi Chazan of New Israel Fund
Rightist group accuses NIF of providing 92% of negative references to the IDF in the Goldstone report.
By Jonathan Lis Tags: Israel newsThe broadside campaign by the Im Tirtzu movement against the New Israel Fund caught its president, Professor Naomi Chazan, in New York, where she traveled to chair a meeting of the fund's board of trustees, scheduled months in advance.
"I've seen everything," she said in a phone interview this week of the posters released by the movement depicting her with a horn emerging from her forehead and labeling her Naomi Goldstone Chazan. "I don't know why they chose me - I can think of plenty of human rights supporters they could pick on. But I'm ever so proud to be a symbol of Israeli democracy. No doubt about it."
"They're using me to attack in the most blatant way the basic principles of democracy and the values of the Declaration of Independence: Values of equality, tolerance, social justice and freedom of speech," she added.
On Thursday, Chazan received an e-mail from Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz, informing her the newspaper would cease publishing her column.
Chazan had provided the daily with one of its few leftist voices in recent years. Horovitz declined to respond to questions from Haaretz on Thursday night.
Also yesterday, some of the organizations supported by NIF released their own ads in response, demanding an independent Israeli investigation of Operation Cast Lead. "We have to make an honest inquiry: What happened in Cast Lead, who is responsible and how can we avoid hurting innocent civilians in the future," read one ad.
Im Tirtzu claimed in a feature published in the Hebrew daily Maariv last Friday that it found that 92 percent of negative references to the IDF in the Goldstone report originating with Israeli sources came from organizations sponsored by NIF. The fund's grantees include Adalah, Breaking the Silence, B'Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yesh Din and the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights.
Following the feature, Im Tirtzu launched an explicit campaign against the fund. Chazan herself says there is no direct correlation between the positions of the fund and those of the grantees. "We really don't support every single thing these organizations say, but we support their right to say it. Some organization's only sin was signing a call to set up an independent committee of inquiry," she said. "This is an attack against organizations that actually differ in their opinions about Goldstone. The only thing that unites them is a demand for an independent investigation, and this is totally mainstream. Even Dan Meridor called for such an investigation."
Chazan calls the Im Tirtzu research and the public scandal it provoked as "gagging." Neither does she spare the methodology of the report itself. "As a politics professor, I know how to read reports. They concealed all the important data. They didn't say, for instance, that many of the quotes come from IDF officers or even directly from Ehud Olmert. The whole thing seems, to put it mildly, methodologically poor and not worthy of comment. I imagine that the actual Goldstone researchers, in most cases, did not need to do anything more than go to any Israeli news site and all the information was there."
Meanwhile, the storm provoked by the campaign has reached the Knesset. The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee rushed to set up a subcommittee to look into how foreign foundations sponsor Israeli organizations. MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) announced he was working to reach a wide consensus on setting up a parliamentary inquiry commission to probe the conduct of NIF and its grantees, while a number of other MKs issued statements supporting the fund and freedom of speech in Israel.
"The Knesset is trying to gag the debate and fan incitement," said Chazan. "This isn't freedom of speech, this is incitement. It's an attempt to eradicate legitimate protest and opposition. And without opposition, there is no democracy."
Im Tirtzu is trying to cast itself as a centrist movement, refusing to explicitly state an alliance to any party, Left or Right. However, a Haaretz probe found that the influencial forces behind the movement make no secret of their rightist political loyalties. Financially, Im Tirtzu is supported by a foundation that has contributed to radical right-wing organizations such as the Women in Green; Pastor John Hagee, the head of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) which contributed to Im Tirtzu, has been implicated in the past by a number of anti-Semitic statements.
Ideologically, the movement's chairman Ronen Shoval used to be spokesman of the "Orange Cell," a student chapter at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that fought against the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and supported the settlement project. Shoval was even honored for his efforts with a citation from the evicted settlement block of Gush Katif.
The main channel for donations to Im Tirtzu is the Central Fund of Israel. In addition to Women in Green and Im Tirtzu, it supports Honenu, an organization sponsoring legal defense to radical right-wing activists in trouble with the law. Honenu boasts of financially supporting the families of the Bat Ayin underground, convicted for trying to bomb a girls' school in East Jerusalem in 2002; of Ami Popper, who shot four Palestinian laborers during the first intifada; Yishai Schlissel, an ultra-Orthodox man who stabbed participants in a Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem in 2005; and Haggai Amir, brother of Yitzhak Rabin's assassin Yigal Amir. Im Tirtzu's Web site asks donations to be sent through the American foundation.
Shoval maintained yesterday that the American foundation's services were used for technical reasons only. "We're a small organization, and a small organizations needs a tax break for the donations it gets," he said yesterday. "CFI is an organization that sends money to scores, if not hundreds, of Israeli organizations, left and right. Donations to it are tax deductable, and this is the only reason why we work with them. I am not familiar with their activities and I haven't studied their organization in depth."
Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that one of the donors to Im Tirtzu is evangelist preacher John Hagee.
Hagee achieved notoriety in 2008, when saying that Hitler carried out the will of God, to return the Jews to Israel in accordance with the biblical promise. Then-presidential candidate John McCain responded by renouncing Hagee's support. Israeli website Walla! said that in one of his books, Hagee also claimed that Hitler was half-Jewish, a descendant of Jacob's brother Esau. He added that the Holocaust took place because the Jews rebelled and renounced the true God. Hagee claimed the Jews' rebelliousness was the reason for anti-Semitism and the persecutions they suffered through the years.
Shoval, however, is not detered by his donor's problematic image. "Hagee also donates to Nefesh B'Nefesh, to Rabbi Grossman, to a hospital in Ashkelon and a college in Netanya," he said. He gives to scores of important organizations in Israeli society, and none of these are suspected as right-wing. Don't suspect us, either - we're not financially well-off enough to say no to money, even if the source doesn't perfectly match my personal world view."
At 29, Shoval is the living spirit behind the organization. He had been a spokesman for Orange Cell, winning a citation from Gush Katif, and is listed as number 83 in Habayit Hayehudi's Knesset elections slate. Yesterday, however, he voiced reservations from his political past. "I reject the orange groups. I was young. My opinions changed. I changed," he said.
He also denied running on the Habayit Hayehudi Knesset ticket. "They put my name there without my permission. It was done by a public relations company they hired. I didn't even vote for them," said Shoval. "Im Tirtzu is not a right-wing movement, I don't see myself as a right-wing person, and it's important for me this is said."
Since its launch, the movement carried out tours of Hebron, and its members published articles on such issues as the Nakba mourning prohibition bill and military service. During Operation Cast Lead, hundreds of members participated in a demonstration in support of the IDF, while more recently the movement made news by demanding that Tel Aviv University fires Dr. Anat Matar, who they alleged was behind the circulation of a portrait of a soldier allegedly suspected of murdering Bil'in activist Bassem Abu Rahma. They also protested against Sapir College lecturer Nizar Hassan, who ejected a student in military uniform from his classroom.
Shoval himself published a large number of articles, all carrying explicitly rightist views. But in an interview to the Arutz Sheva Web site, he said that his movement was different from the anti-disengagement one because they had learned the lessons. "Our criteria of success are how many secular activists did we recruit, and have we penetrated mass media, where we can convince the unconvinced, not preach to the choir," he told the interviewer.
In an op-ed published in Haaretz, Shoval, who had also been a key figure in the reservists' protest in the wake of the Second Lebanon War, said the soldiers were mistaken to avoid political statements. "The personal discourse used by us reservists, who tried to avoid expressing political opinions, left the people of Israel caught in a dangerous conception that remains unchanged," he wrote. Ideas like the realignment plan, the Geneva Initiative and the Saudi initiative maintain the same flawed reasoning. The root of the problem, which remains unchanged, is the prevalent conception of the political, state and defense establishment, which says you can defend Gush Dan without the protective wall of Judea and Samaria."
In another article, written after the stroke suffered by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, Shoval wrote: "You were the worse prime minister. I'm hopeful you will recover quickly and regain leadership of Kadima, so that the Right can defeat you in democratic elections and we can restore to Israel the public standards it deserves."
But yesterday he sought to dissociate himself from any party alliances. "We have decided that the movement does not work on the Judea and Samaria issue. We think the demographic issue needs to be resolved, and this should be done with defensible borders. In this aspect, we are a classic centrist movement close to Labor, Kadima and Likud."
"The debate is not about left or right," said Shoval. "This was the old debate. The new debate is between Zionists and non-Zionists. Some Zionists are leftists, and some rightists are not Zionist, like those who seek to make Israel a theocracy."
"If your story will end up presenting us like a right-wing movement, you blew it," he added.
Dimi Reider contributed to this report
Correction: This article originially misstaed the source of donations received by the non-profit organization Im Tirzu. The contributions were made by John Hagee Ministries, not Christians United for Israel.
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New Israel Fund President Naomi Chazan. |
| Photo by: (Guy Raivitz) |
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We seem to have plenty of room in the USA for leftists, they're in the President's cabinet and are quite numerous among his czars People also say that that Obama himself is a leftist Far better you concern yourself with the leftists at home, after all they're circumventing the Constitition and doing their best to jam Socialized (Leftist) Obamacare down our throats
Fact: JPost suspended Chazan ONLY after she and her group threatened a big lawsuit agains he newspaper. But facts such as this one lacking in this piece (and mitigating circumstances) against an archrival is certainly too much to ask from anti-Israeli ideologues like Haaretz.
We love plurality in and freedom of the press and have always been interested in the writings of those holding opposing views to ours under the motto "know thy enemy". Came with the Romans, Augustus encouraged free press and plurality because in that way he learned whom to pre-emptively and pro-actively kill, arrest and/or neutralize when the time had come to seize power and to establish the Empire and do away with that ragged republic and it's horrible democratic senate. One of the greatest Europeans ever and a shining example till this day, Augustus Imperator Rex.
What about it?
What about them?
NEWS FLASH: 'Post' stops Chazan column after threat. NIF and its president Chazan threatened legal action over ad in paper: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=167984 "The decision was taken by Jerusalem Post management after a legal threat was received at the paper from the NIF and Chazan?s lawyers." Still surprised? NEWS FLASH: Freedom of speech cuts both ways, people.
In the mid-1930s there was no room in Germany for any leftist. There is no room in Israel today for any leftist.
NIF IS LEANING OVER BACKWARDS TO BE POLITICALLY CORRECT
How can under-minding a country at war be anything but collaboration with the enemy that wants to destroy you. What is the problem with Israelis who don't listen to the words of those who daily speak of killing you? How can those who work to help Israel's sworn adversaries be hero's to anyone but Israel's enemies? It's not about label's it's about Israel's survival.
England has no written constitution either. Still, Israel should get one as well as have direct election of representatives.
years i'd be very rich.
Naomi's comments were always sure to increase my blood pressure by several points and I will not miss her one bit. Now if the Jerusalem Post would only get rid of Larry Derfner, it might better represent the opinion of Israelis.
So let me get it right. According to Haarez it is OK and democratic to set up a committee that is critical of Israel. It is also OK and democratic to set up committees that are critical of organizations that defend Israel and her actions. But here comes a criticism and desire to probe into the activities of an organization that is (by merit of its choice of organizations in which it is funding) critical of Israel, and all Haaretz can do is call this an attempt to "muzzle" the truth? I would suggest that Israeli democracy is working very well here thank you, and Haaretz's desire to muzzle this inquiry is the only think non-democratic about it.
where did the jp suddenly acquire backbone ?
CONSTITUTION. So could someone please point me to a link that shows and describes Israel's constitution? Because I can't find Israel's constitution, which is needed to provide and enshine and protect basic rights for ALL of a nation's citizens. Surely Israel has one, don't they?
...and none of Chazzan's usual cliches address this issue or will make the allegations just go away. The lies have worn thread bare.
You have no guts to stand up to any principles Horowitz !!!!!
The most effective way to stop the harm to innocent civilians in Gaza is to get rid of Hamas, who uses them as human shields, kills them for disagreeing with its views, and rarely allows them to leave Gaza, where they are kept hostage. Financial aid to Gaza is being trimmed by the EU, and Hamas leaders are setting themselves up in mansions? The Left is going too far in dragging this out. We know what happened.
i do not know what you are talking about.i read 5 papers everyday.i stopped the jpost because it was the most onesided garbage i have ever read.i lived over 3 years in israel and worked 13 years for mizrahi bank.
Leftists like mentioning free speech rights, but, only for yourdelf and use it only to vilify Israel and rightists. Just the fact that NIF has support form Ford Foundation is makes NIF fascist organization as we know that Ford openly supported Hitler and extermination of Jews. Pastor Hagee is real friend of Israel unlike Israel leftists and numerous NGOs who use Democratic principles to make money from Jewish blood. Read Hagee books, listen him on TV. The best example of who leftists are in reality is Haaretz. No doubt this comments will never been published, as many others I wrote. Mark Bernadiner, PH.D.
it confirms their anti-Israel bias daily, why should they read anything else?
Since my first trip to Israel in 1972, the country, in part due to the inexorability of demographics, has drifted glacier-like to the right, in parallel with strong anti-democratic undercurrents. BTW I never knew about the New Israel Fund, now I do!
Just stay where you are with Pauline, and give her your enlighted advice, the US is greater than Israel, it can afford your advice without too much harm, WE CAN'T.
What we realy need which fits well with your opinion as presente above, is a real honest to god dictatureship, building acertain number of concentration camps for those leftists who by the way represent the ideology that made possible THE STAE OF ISRAEL. THANKS FOR TOUR IDEAS, WE REALY NEED PEOPLE LIKE YOU!!!
and the lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul and the lord planted a garden eastward in eden and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground made the lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,bereshyt
first they came for the arabs, then they came for the gays, then they came for the human rights group... I cant wait to see how this ends.
I love (sarc) these commies. They invoke free speech etc... but when used by the right:'They're using me to attack in the most blatant way the basic principles of democracy and the values of the Declaration of Independence: Values of equality, tolerance, social justice and freedom of speech.' So, do you want free speech and debate or not? No one has the divine right to a newspaper column in a privately owned periodical.
no great surprise,now jpost can hire sarah palin to replace her.this is why i read haaretz and not jpost.
Jpost has many left wing writers - Baskin, Defer, Oppenheimer, Dershowitz, & Koch just to name a few. Quite frankly, I think it is about time that people found out how their charitable contributions had been misused. There is a thing called transparency - something that NIF did not use, but instead mislead people. Haaretz should be reporting on a group that duped people out of money - why is there no "investigative reporting" by Haaretz on that?
simply because the honest politicians with leftist world-view have enough information that such policies are destructive and unrealistic. Look at Peres, Barak... As for foreign financing of Israeli NGO's, it wouldn't be a problem as long as they do not harm the country. And this is exactly what NIF is doing. Don't forget that the Western European "Peace Movement" had been financed by Russian KGB.
most of the Israelis support this decision, whilst anti-semitic Goym from overseas, that read a Jewish newspaper are for the destruction of Israel together with MS.Hazan and her clique. The facts are that 92%(!) of ALL fictitious info. and "facts", supplied to Goldsone , were from NIF taht is financed by foreign governments. PLEASE SEND HAZAN PACKING! She should live in Gaza , or in Venezuela, or Cuba or Damascus!
May I humbly suggest that Ms Chazan would reach a wider and more thoughtful public if she she were to write for Ha'Aretz.
J'lem Post all too eager to silence your strong voice on their stridently right-wing pages...
shame on jpost.
I had never heard of this organization until today but when I understood what they were doing, I immediately got out my credit card and sent them a donation. Anything that brings the sickening activities of our enemies from within to light is worth funding. And G-d bless any gentile who supports us against our enemies. More power to Im Tirtzu!!
That would be an appropriate retaliation, but does Ha'aretz have the courage?
Walter in Anchorage, What might that weapon be? Internment, assassination? Or, just stopping them from speaking out?
"sraeli "Leftists" should reanalyze the recent past, looking for certain things that `snuck up on them`" Actually, they forewarned..... "`Rightists` have a weapon that is not visible to younger `leftists`" BullSh*te? Na. It's easily recognized by it's transparency.
McCain distanced himself from Hagee not because of any statments about Jews. This journalist has misstated the facts. McCain distanced himself when McCain made ostensibly anti-Catholic church remarks. Hagee has been anything but an antisemite. His speech to AIPPAC in March, 2008, was greeted with standing applause for his pro-Jewish sentiments and his apologies on behalf of Chrsitians anywehre for past antisemitism. Isn;t Haaretz able to publish any articles where it can state the facts correctly when it comes to pro-Zionist positions??
NIF is a front organization for the Ford Foundation. Hitler called Henry Ford his favorite capitalist. Henry Ford was the only American to get paid by the US government for damage caused by the USAAF to his concentration camps where they built half of the vehicles for the German Army. NIF only funds organizations that are attempting to demonize the State of Israel. That too is a fact.
Use your energy to complain to your own governement for killing 100,000 civilians in Iraq, rather than focusing on Israel. Alternatively, you can focus on Russia which killed 150,000 Chechen civilians in its indiscriminate bombardments in the 90s or the 1,000,000 Tibetan civilians that have died since the Chinese took over Tibet.
afterall if your agenda is not strictly right-wing and continually finding obstacles against peace with the Palestinians, then there's no purpose to write for The Jerusalem Post. I'm even surprised that Naomi Chazan wrote for the one-sided paper. As far as I know, the only Israeli editor defending the recent wars in Lebanon and Gaza was JP chief David Horovitz. Is that part of his job description or should he let readers decide for themselves? I've never heard Naomi Chazan speak but I did hear Caroline Glick , the managing editor speak in Toronto. It's like comparing day and night. My parents often attended Prof. Naomi Chazan's lectures in Toronto and a very good friend of mine who lived in Jerusalem for 15 years had Prof. Chazan as her professor and simply adored her. What a disadvantage for Israelis to receive a humanitarian's voice and regrettable that in a democracy all viewpoints are not given equal presentation.
Rather than allow a newspaper to snuff out a voice for democracy, please share your thoughts with the folks at Jerusalem Post. Whether you agree with her or not, we need diverse voices in our press. Please remind them of this. http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/Feedback.aspx
Israel is quickly shifting to right-wing nationalism...it has gone from an enlightened pluralistic society to a run-of-the-mill right-wing nationalist European country. The obsession with the "left" is becoming very ugly. If this keeps up, Israel will soon be viewed in the international community as a right-wing pariah nation that has no interest in peace with its neighbors.
Israel, Israelis and their foreign supporters are blaming everyone and everything under the sun for the Goldstone report. How about blaming YOURSELVES. No one else but you are responsible for the results of the report, no one but yourselves are responsible for blowing it off and not investigating sooner and most importantly no one else is responsible for your actions in Operation Caste Lead but YOU.
trying to silence and coerce through strong arm tactics. It may work with the palestinians who are weak and helpless but not with the rest of the world!
Good luck with that, Wayne. Keep drinking the kool aid...
Coming from a former hard leftist, I’m happy to see that Israel is looking into the powerful groups that do nothing but work against it from within. I know that Ms. Chazan feels she is doing the right thing but Israel needs to defend itself or be destroyed. She doesn’t contribute to a stronger Israel like she says, but rather to one that will be forced to give in to every demand from Hamas as they rain rockets on our citizens. Israel fought the most humane war in history even warning civilians of impending attacks. If Israeli leftists get their way, you will all be calling yourselves Palestinians for a about 24 hours until they complete their mass slaughter of all Jews. They will not drop leaflets not distinguish between the nice people of the left and the rest of the mean Jews. Time to wake up, lets not walk back into the ovens do to our own self hatred.
This is a sad day for Israeli democracy and freedom of the Press. Although not always agreeing with NIF, this is a brave organisation which tries to balance the extreme right views and actions of the government, settlers and the ultra-orthodox. Good luck to the New Israel Fund!
What are you referring to when you say "certain things that `snuck up on them`. Are you referring to Fascism? If so, take heart. The Israeli left is obviously well aware of that danger. That is why they are protesting against the Jewish neo-fascists in the guise of Im Terzu et al who threaten not only Israeli democracy, but Jews who don't agree with them. Make no mistake my friend....there are probably many Jews in their ranks and among radical settler elements (religious and secular alike) who will not hesitate to kill "traitorous" Jews when the time comes.
Naomi Chazan. When Menachem Begin came to power,many from the Left Movement & Mapam Kibbutzim incl.Chazan's Kibbutz spread the news that Begin was going to bring about a war. Some even went so far as to say that they are leaving Israel. Then there was a complete turn-about,& Begin Brought Peace with Egypt with Anwar Saadat. Naomi Chazan got so excited.She went to Gaza with one or two Arab MKs climbed on a table,wrapped herself with a Palestinian flag & started to dance. The Arabs who were present were shocked,but still applauded,while mocking her under her their breath.She was a Mapam MK at that time. She repeated this circus again in Jericho. The Haaretz files can substantiate the above. I hope they'll put this through.
This is purely a business decision by J Post. So lets let them feel the business pain. Do not visit the site -- so the number of hits they get diminishes and with it, their revenues. We all know where J Post management has stood. But at least they tried to present an alternative voice. But apparently they are apparently believe there are more sheckels to be made in becoming more like Pravda. Why bother to hear anything, if you know the truth completely! Even Fox News has some opposing voices on (in between O'Reilly and Beck's yelling). Also, cancel your print subscriptions until they feel enough pain to get the message!
Israeli "Leftists" should reanalyze the recent past, looking for certain things that 'snuck up on them'. 'Rightists' have a weapon that is not visible to younger 'leftists'.
haaretz coming to the defense of the left,settling scores?
The report by Im Tirtzu is accurate and those that want to squash the report are attacking the messenger rather than dealing with the message. Those that want to support Im Tirtzu should visit fundisrael.org
The move by the Jerusalem post to fire a columnist because of her political views is very disturbing to me. It's a step away from democracy and moderation for the newspaper specifically, and for Israel in general, and towards widespread extremism. I hope we hear about a significant number of voices in Israel protesting this move.
I do not read the JP except when in Israel,the only English daily in Israel and I am not fluent in Hebrew to read the others. It was interesting to read that the JP had a leftist columnist who is now fired. I guess they must have taken a page from Haaretz who got rid of all their rightist columnists long ago.
The JP has become a third rate, right-wing paper pandering to the Anglo Jewish community, both here and in the diaspora. This was not always the case. That it has seen fit to fire Naomi Chazan is sad, but not surprising. I'm sure the bulk of the JP's readers will be delighted.
The J Post has gone from being one of the newspapers on the US president's breakfast table to a joke. Caroline Glick's purple prose is much more in tune than any gesture to broadmindedness. Their weekend supplement is still good.
The current knesset is probably the most right-wing Israel ever had. It might start targeting "internal ennemies" preaching human and citizen rights. That day, the state of Israel won't be able any longer to present itself as the sole democracy in the Middle-East. Since its creation, this state did succeed in protecting a strong civil society based on freedom of speech while fighting war. It's fightening to see that this period might be over soon.
As an Israeli-American, I find this event a frightening affront to democracy the liberal humanistic philosophy which characterized Israel at its establishment. I have made a donation to the New Israel Fund.
It is likely that chameleons have less colours than this individual. "At 29, Shoval is the living spirit behind the organization." - and perhaps a danger to Israeli civil society.
This makes for very depressing and yet comical reading. Mr Shoval - a relative of Zalman the former UN ambassador who never misses an opportunity to miss the point? - is not very good at semantics. Of course he and his movement are right of centre and of course all the blah about what his organisation does and doesn't do 'technically' is blah. What's great is the identity of the person named as contributing to this piece. He is someone with solid left of centre credentials and all power to him even if we don't share the "Z" word.
Just another disgusting example of what has always been the true danger to Israeli democracy: right wing holier than thou Jewish Taliban.
this article sounds nothing other than a childish tit for tat "he insulated my charity so i will insult his" who writes these things? only when the standard of news papers/journalists/writers rises above cave man in this country will there be peace....
The New Israel Fund is very problematic and has been for a very long time. They fund extremist left wing organizations which hurt Israel and the Jewish people. Calling the criticism of the NIF "gagging" is nonsense.