Profile
Country/Territory | Israel |
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Website | http://tv.social.org.il/eng/about-us |
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Founded | 2006 |
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In their own words | “An independent media organization (NGO) working to promote social change, human rights, social justice and equality as well as to mobilize its viewers towards activism.” |
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Funding
- In 2021, total income was NIS 860,042; total expenses were NIS 820,458.
- Donors include: New Israel Fund, Cordaid (Netherlands), American Friends Service Committee, CCFD (France), Foundation for Middle East Peace, Euro-Mediterranean Foundation of Support to Human Rights Defenders (EMHRF), Sigrid Rausing Trust (UK), and British Shalom Salaam Trust (UK). Website lists additional “Supporting Partners”: Oxfam Great Britain (UK), Anne Frank Foundation (Switzerland), and Annenberg Foundation (United States).
- Based on financial information submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits, in accordance with the Israeli NGO transparency law, Israel Social TV received NIS 3,747,926 foreign governmental bodies in 2012-2021. (See chart below for detailed funding information.)
- In 2017-2021, the New Israel Fund (NIF) authorized grants worth $53,757 to Social TV.
Activities
- Claims to “report on social injustices and human right violations,” “amplify marginalized groups and voices that many times represent unpopular opinions,” and “work in close cooperation with other organizations for social change providing them and their agendas with visibility and coverage they do not receive from mainstream media.
- Maintains that “In its determination to maintain its independence, ISTV refuses commercial and government support… All our activity is financed by fundraising from foundations and by our own strenuous independent income-generating activities.” However, Social TV does receive indirect government funding.
Political Advocacy
- Acts as a platform for accusations of Israeli “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” “racism,” “discrimination,” and perpetrating a “Nakba” against the Palestinian population, and to advocate the “one-state” solution and a Palestinian “right of return.”
- Holds a monthly panel to “discusses the Nakba as it relates to women, militarism and peace.”
- In May 2023, Social TV published a video encouraging the annual “Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony” hosted by Parents Circle Families Forum and Combatants for Peace. The annual ceremony creates a major controversy, with critics arguing that it promotes a Palestinian narrative that draws an immoral equivalence between terror victims and terrorists.
- In April 2023, Social TV published a video titled “The fire of Apartheid,” demonstrating “white and blue racial discrimination…this is the definition of apartheid.”
- In July 2022, Social TV produced a video titled “Ongoing Nakba I Radical Lipstick” claiming that the end result of the Nakba was “the ethnic cleansing of the majority of Palestinians.” The video also claimed, “The ongoing Nakba is the same policy of expropriation, the policy of banishment and expulsion that continues to this day. But instead of being carried out through violence, the discriminatory policy takes place within the auspices of the democratic policy.”
- In August 2022, Social TV was a signatory on a statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “We stand in solidarity with our fellow human rights defenders in Palestinian society. We repudiate these baseless declarations and call on the international community to pressure Israel to revoke its decision.”
- In April 2019, Social TV published a video featuring protestors in Tel Aviv, including those from Israeli NGO Zochrot, that advocated for “the lift[ing] on the siege [of Gaza], a cease to shooting on demonstrators and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.” One of the demonstrators is quoted as saying, “We will not resolve our problems until there is equality here for everyone instead of demanding a Jewish ethnic majority which is what all the parties, including racist Meretz, want.” Another protestor compared the situation to apartheid South Africa, stating, “Most whites in South Africa who enjoyed the situation did not join the black struggle against apartheid….But after the apartheid fell, as will the Israeli apartheid.”
- In May 2018, Yehudit Ilani, a columnist for Social TV and adviser to Knesset Member Haneen Zoabi, participated in the 2018 Al-Awda flotilla, which is expected to reach Gaza by the end of July. The flotilla marked the “anniversary of the Nakba and the many deaths in Gaza.” Ilani has expressed her support for the “return of the refugees and the model of a state of all its citizens, even if it means that there will be a Jewish minority in the country.”
- Ilani also participated in a flotilla to Gaza in 2016, keeping a travelogue, describing how the situation in Gaza is “not ‘close to disastrous’ but already beyond the horrific.”
- In September 2017, Israel Social TV produced short films for a symposium organized by Zochrot titled “The Right and Meaning of Return” that discussed “Strategies for dealing with the Zionist intent to relegate the right of return to oblivion, deny, or revoke it.”
- On July 6, 2017, posted a video titled “What If the Palestinian Refugees Return?” in which Israelis and Palestinians were interviewed about a Palestinian “right of return.” An Israel Social TV reporter editorialized about “how and when Israel will recognize the Nakba, and allow for the agreed implementation of the right of return as a solution of peace and genuine security for all” (emphasis added).
- On March 21, 2016, Yudit Ilani was a speaker at a panel titled “The Return of Palestinian Refugees in the local Civil Society Discourse” at Zochrot’s “Third International Conference on the Return of Palestinian Refugees.”
- On May 27, 2015, Social TV posted a video supporting Palestinian efforts to suspend Israel from FIFA. In the article, Social TV also attacked its own donor, the New Israel Fund: “Palestinian efforts to gain Israeli attention – abandoning terrorist attacks and applying international pressure are deserving of esteem. Surprising is the New Israel Fund efforts to sabotage the Palestinian move just moments before their non-violent action reaches nearly every home in Israel. Perhaps the Fund’s executive director’s letter…is intended to close ranks with the Israeli public.”
- Features a 2014 lecture by radical historian Ilan Pappe, claiming that the two-state solution is “just a tool where [Israel] maintains control over the [Palestininians]” and that a “one-state” solution is possible because “in South Africa, there were also liberal Zionists, liberal apartheid supporters…” The segment claims that while the two-state solution is still on the political agenda, “there are those who argue that this solution is neither right nor applicable.”
- Moran Brir and Guy Botabia, activists affiliated with Social TV, were involved with the production of a highly disturbing 2014 video, “The Holocaust’s Visit to Yad Vashem.” The video claims that the Holocaust was “the best thing that ever happened” to the Jewish people and that the Jewish nation”do[es] not exist” and “never existed.” Other inflammatory videos by the pair have been posted on Social TV.
- Israeli Social TV participated in a December 2014 “Canaan Conference” in Berlin titled “Trialogue with Israel and Palestine.” While the conference, sponsored by Bread for the World-EED, claimed to be “a platform for bi- and trilateral communication between women from Palestine, Israel and Germany,” it featured many inflammatory speakers, including one who reportedly declared “Zionists are racists.”
- Produced a 2013 video, “Agriculture in the Jordan Valley,” which includes statements by researchers from the “Who Profits” campaign and claims that the Israeli Mekorot water company dries up water springs leading to “no agriculture and no work” within Palestinian areas. (Click here to read more about NGOs and the libel campaign against the Mekorot water company).
- Aired a 2013 video segment, “From Truth to Redress,” promoting the one-state conference organized by fringe Israeli NGO Zochrot.
- Aired a 2013 video segment, “From Holocaust to Revival,” which criticizes organized school trips to Poland for inculcating a “militaristic discourse, speech and codes of behavior” in Israeli society.
BDS Activities
- Active in promoting BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) campaigns against Israel.
- In May 2016, Social TV posted a video titled “A vacation to the occupation with Airbnb,” stating that “a foreign tourist could find himself spending a weekend in a settlement without knowing that he is an accomplice to a crime and endangering himself and his family.”
- In February 2016, Social TV posted a video titled “A boycott on stage,” discussing how “an Israeli artist on stage represents the Israeli occupying power, denying the rights of Palestinians.”
- In February 2015, Ehud Shem Tov, the founder and editor-in-chief of Social TV, signed a petition calling on the European Union to increase pressure on Israel by “label[ing] settlement products” and imposing additional sanctions.
- Features a February 21, 2014 article promoting BDS demonstrations against the performances of the Israeli dance company, Batsheva, at an arts festival in New Zealand. The article includes a cartoon of an Israeli dancer holding a gun in front of the security barrier; the caption reads: “DON’T dance with Israeli APARTHEID.”
- Social TV runs advertisements promoting the use of BUYCOTT, a smartphone application that allows users to “define their purchasing preferences such as supporting certain companies, buying Israeli produce, boycotting or avoiding products manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank…”
- Signed a 2009 letter to the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, together with Coalition of Women for Peace, Mossawa, Women Against Violence, Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Zochrot, Alternative Information Center (AIC), and Machsom Watch, calling “upon the Norwegian people to join us in our efforts and to stop investing in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.” The letter accused a number of Israeli and international corporations of “provid[ing] specifically designed equipment for the surveillance and repression of Palestinian population through restrictions of movement and collective punishments.” The campaign resulted in the Pension Fund’s divestment from the Israeli company, Elbit Ltd.
Partners
Foreign donations to Israeli Social TV (amounts in NIS)
2018-2021 amounts are based on the organization’s financial reports.
Donor | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
European Union | 100,756 | 214,907 | 227,094 | 319,732 |
CCFD (France) | 61,790 | 62,855 | 75,236 | 60,606 |
Sigrid Rausing Trust | 330,908 | 336,075 | 351,053 | 238,573 |
HeksEper | | | 68,576 | 121,654 |
American Friends Service Committee | 51,341 | 51,341 | 53,471 | 50,879 |
The British Shalom Salaam Trust | | 21,535 | 22,172 | 28,603 |
Medico | | | | 41,248 |
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