A new leak site calling itself DC Leaks has leaked emails purporting to be from George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. Although the documents have not been authenticated, according to Bloomberg News, a spokeswoman for OSF has confirmed that it was indeed hacked.
It’s hardly news that George Soros funds anti-Israel groups, including J Street. But these documents provide additional details.
For example, according to one of these documents, titled Arab Regional Office – Presidential Portfolio Review, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – received almost $2.7 million from OSF from 2001-2015. During that time period, Adalah compiled a database that it claims shows dozens of Israeli laws that discriminate against Israel’s Arab citizens.
Adalah was cited as a contributing organization in the now-notorious platform of the Movement for Black Lives. Among its other problematic statements, the platform says that Israel practices “systematic discrimination,” a statement that likely is based on Adalah’s database.
The “discriminatory laws database” is, of course, a complete crock. For example, it counts as discriminatory a law that allows the withholding of state funds from organizations that conduct an “activity that rejects the existence of Israel as a ‘Jewish and democratic state’ or commemorates ‘Israel’s Independence Day or the day on which the state was established as a day of mourning.'”
Both NGO Monitor and The Institute for Zionist Strategies have debunked the database. IZS did so more recently in a 62-page report in Hebrew. Algemeiner reports that IZS gave as examples of laws that Adalah claims are discriminatory,
The Law and Administration Ordinance, which defines the country’s official days of rest, and the Law for Using the Hebrew Date, both of which are included in Adalah’s list. According to IZS, both “explicitly exclude institutions and authorities that serve non-Jewish populations for whom the law provides for definitions and procedures appropriate for their specific needs.”
Another example is the Israeli flag, which Adalah claims is a discriminatory symbol, due to its depiction of a Jewish Star of David. IZS says that, applied elsewhere, this claim does not stand up to scrutiny. “This reasoning would mean that any country, the flag of which bears a cross or crescent discriminates against its non-Christian or non-Muslim minorities,” it wrote.
So, not forcing non-Jewish institutions to close of Shabbat is considered by Adalah to be discriminatory.
For Soros, however, none of that will likely matter.
