http://frontpagemag.com/2012/carol-levine/a-tenured-extremist-in-israel-leads-the-campaign-to-defame-his-country-2/print/
“Here is how Ruth King from the “Americans for a Safe Israel” described Goldblum’s pseudo-poll:
As part of “surveygate,” Goldblum and his hit team insisted that if Israeli Jews favor separate roads in the West Bank for Jews and Arabs, because of the daily attempts by Arabs there to murder Jews, it shows that Jews are racists who favor an apartheid regime. The survey evidently used the term “hafrada” in Hebrew, meaning separation, a word that can also mean apartheid. So when many Israeli Jews indicated that they favor hafrada, Goldblum and his Smeartroopers had their headline: Israelis favor apartheid. Other indicators of “Jewish support for apartheid” were found by the Goldblum team when many Israeli Jews favored affirmative action preferences in hiring in favor of Jews. Never mind that the entire Left in Israel has long lobbied for racist quotas in favor of Arabs!Even the predominantly leftist Israeli press including Ha’aretz denounced Goldblum and his smear campaign, some comparing it to the lies and distortions of the UN’s “Goldstone Commission.” On October 26, 2012, the deputy editor of Maariv, Ben Dror Yemini, called Goldblum an anti-Israel anti-democratic fanatic.”
Israel has long been the target of campaigns of vilification by its own anti-Israel radical academics, enjoying their cushy salaries at Israel’s taxpayer-funded universities. Many of these individuals lead the world campaigns of economic aggression against Israel (the so-called BDS or “Boycott, Divest, Sanctions” campaign). Some openly call for Israel’s annihilation or support terrorist atrocities against Jews.
A few weeks back, one of the worst campaigns to undermine Israel’s legitimacy was launched by Amiram Goldblum, a radical leftist professor in pharmaceutical studies at the country’s Hebrew University. He is also a hater of democracy and freedom of speech. He was a founder of the radical group “Peace Now,” which demands complete and unconditional capitulation by Israel to the diktats of the Arab world. Goldblum gave an address to a forum of leftists last spring in which he called for Israel sovereignty and democracy to be suppressed by means of foreign pressures to coerce the country to agree to the far-Left’s pro-Palestinian political agenda.
Goldblum’s anti-Israel activism was suddenly thrust into the spotlight when he organized and funded a tendentious pseudo-survey of Jewish public opinion in Israel, in which he claimed that Israeli Jews support “apartheid.” The “findings” of the “survey” were quickly taken at face value by the media and especially by the bash-Israel lobby.
As it turned out, the “survey” was nothing more than a shoddy manipulative pseudo-scientific exercise in distortion. It was Goldblum’s own private personal initiative, paid for and sponsored by a fund Goldblum single-handedly manages (named after his late wife). Goldblum assembled a small group of far-leftist anti-Israel activists in Israel, only one of whom is an academic (and even he is a political scientist, not a statistician). They composed survey questions that were designed to produce responses that could be twisted into making it look like Israeli Jews are racists and supporters of apartheid.
Writing in the Israel Hayom daily, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, a world-class political scientist, denounced Goldblum and his team for the manipulation. He writes:
[A] great deal of damage has been done outside Israel, where this farce was used to further the campaign of anti-Israel political warfare and demonization….The poll that generated such attention was flawed in many dimensions. In Maariv, Ben-Dror Yemini details many of the false claims and absurd statements it contains. And in Haaretz, former Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Yehuda Ben-Meir emphasized that the actual conclusion to be drawn from the poll results was “exactly the opposite of what’s written in the article’s headline” and that the majority of Israelis were “unwilling to live in a country with an apartheid regime.” As a “push” poll used for crude political manipulation, and involving only 503 people, this survey was driven by clear political objectives. The pseudo-poll is another form of attack in this political war to demonize Israel. Responsibility for the attack, beyond Haaretz, lies with Amiram Goldblum, a founder of Peace Now, who runs the Yisraela Goldblum Fund (named after his late wife), which paid for costs, under the wider framework of the non-profit group known as “Signing Anew.” This funding, in turn, was provided by the New Israel Fund, and Goldblum is a member of NIF’s International Council. In addition, according to Goldblum’s press release, the “questions” used in this transparent political stunt were formulated by individuals closely connected to the NIF, the Durban Strategy and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. … Everyone connected with this travesty shares responsibility for the immense political damage that has been caused. Goldblum, in particular, owes the Israeli public an apology.
