Dear friends,
I was planning to write to you to introduce myself—to say how honored I am to be stepping into the role of Acting CEO of the New Israel Fund while Daniel takes his well-earned sabbatical. I am tremendously excited by this opportunity, but there will be time for that. For now, you can read more about me and my background in an interview I just gave to Haaretz.
Instead, I feel compelled to write to you about something else. Something urgent. Something that will not wait.
Not long ago, I spoke with my colleague and friend in Israel, Fida Nara-Tabony, co-director of the Program Department of the New Israel Fund. Fida is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and the most senior Palestinian officer to ever serve at NIF. She is also a mother. She told me candidly that it feels like every day someone she knows is murdered. She told me that she no longer lets her two young daughters walk freely in their own neighborhood because she fears they could be hit by a stray bullet. This is now her daily life. But it wasn’t always this way, and we know it doesn’t need to stay like this.
This past year was the deadliest year on record for Israel’s Arab society. In 2025, 252 people were murdered. That’s between four and five murders a week. Can you imagine?
These are not individual, isolated tragedies. These deaths are the result of clear policy choices and they are devastating Arab communities across Israel.
For years, Palestinian citizens of Israel have warned of systematic neglect, over policing of serious crime on the one hand, and under policing where it matters on the other. Today, with Israel’s most extreme political faction in control of the police, that warning has become reality.
The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made his priorities clear—and public safety in Arab communities is not among them. His record reflects a profound disregard for Arab lives, and the consequences are now being measured in funerals.
We saw this play out in the police operation in the town of Tarabin in the Negev last week. Under the banner of “law and order,” heavily armed forces entered a vulnerable Bedouin community with sweeping powers, collective punishment tactics, and little regard for due process. When the state treats an entire community as a threat rather than as citizens deserving protection, it undermines the rule of law and erodes democracy itself.
In short, the state is actively undermining Arab society at every turn—socially, economically, and physically. And it must be said, security is not only about the police; it is also about welfare, the economy, and the future. And when civic trust collapses, violence fills the vacuum.
So what is the New Israel Fund doing about it?
First, we are responding to immediate needs. NIF is a leading funder in a collaborative network that is working to ensure that resources reach the organizations and leaders doing lifesaving work right now—violence prevention initiatives, legal advocacy groups, and community-based responders who are holding the line where the state has failed. Because, during the scourge of organized crime, this callous government cut the previous one’s investment in the economic development of Arab society (known as Decision 550). That budget was something that NIF grantees like Sikkuy-Afoq and the National Committee of Heads of Arab Local Authorities (the primary representative body for Arab municipalities in Israel), worked day and night to secure. Now they are fighting for its scraps.
But we know that emergency, or even medium term, funding is not enough. This is why NIF is investing from the ground up to rebuild and strengthen Arab civil society for the long haul. At the heart of this effort is Nasij—“Tapestry”—our three-year pilot program to strengthen Palestinian civil society in Israel.
Yes the problems are acute now, but Palestinian citizens of Israel have faced systemic exclusion and chronic under-investment for decades. Too few organizations, too few resources, and too little infrastructure have left communities with little to work with when it comes to advocating for their own rights.
Nasij addresses this head-on. The overarching goal is to strengthen Palestinian civil society and leadership so that it will lead the charge towards a better future for Palestinian citizens—at an individual level, at an organizational level, and at a societal level. And as Nasij enters its second year this fall, we are already seeing the beginnings of a stronger, more connected civic ecosystem for Palestinian citizens of Israel.
In this same long-term vein, NIF is deepening our commitment to equality and partnership in the Negev.
NIF’s Equality and Partnership in the Negev program takes a clear, values-driven approach. It has two primary goals. First, to advance the basic rights and dignity of Bedouin communities—including recognition of those villages that are still “unrecognized”, and basic quality-of-life improvements. Second, to deepen the democratic, pro-equality forces within Jewish communities. Both of these together are what will bring us closer to achieving NIF’s long-term vision for the Negev, as a place that is truly shared, where Jews and Arabs can live in equality, safety, and mutual respect.
I know all of this may be difficult to read. It reflects a painful reality. But I want to end with hope—not the passive kind, but the kind we build through action.
Every day, I see Israelis—Jews and Arabs—refusing to give up on one another. I see organizers, lawyers, social workers, educators, and young leaders choosing solidarity over fear. The New Israel Fund exists so that they can carry on building the future we all want to see. And as I step into this role, I do so with a deep sense of responsibility to—and gratitude for—you and this community, who make that work possible.
I believe change is necessary and it will happen, but it requires bold action—understanding the connections between so many issues rather than isolating them. That is what we are doing at NIF. Thank you for being with us.
With hope and determination,
Mickey Gitzin
Acting CEO
New Israel Fund