+972 Magazine
+972 Magazine is a blog-based web magazine that was established independently in August 2010 by a group of writers based in Israel and the Palestinian territories.[citation needed]
+972 has 11 regular writers and editors. It also publishes contributions by guest contributors. The enterprise is jointly owned by the authors and editorial team and is non-profit.[citation needed] The content on +972 Magazine represents a point of view that is left wing and progressive. Writer Noam Sheizaf, +972 chief executive officer and site manager as of 2012, described the impetus for +972 as a "will to sound a new and mostly young voice which would take part in the international debate regarding Israel and Palestine."[1]
The name of the magazine is derived from the 972 international telephone area code that is shared by Israel and the Palestinian territories. The plus sign indicates the familiar area code prefix; it also symbolizes the magazine’s guiding ethos of providing an additional perspective to the Israeli news scene, one that was missing from the discourse about Israel and Palestine.[citation needed]
Funding
In 2010, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German think-tank affiliated with the Green Party, provided 6,000 euros in funding.[2]
According to The Nation, +972 had received grants of $70,000 from the Social Justice Fund at the New Israel Fund.[3]
Criticism
NGO Monitor criticized +972 as being antisemitic "because it seeks to strip the Jewish state of its legitimacy" by using the apartheid analogy regarding Israel.[4]
CEO Noam Sheizaf answered: "The attack on +972 is being carried out in the standard way NGO Monitor, Im Tirzu and similar organizations work these days: Not by debating the content of our reports and commentary pieces, but by trying to delegitimize and silence us". In February 2012 Sheizaf said "Jewish American liberals are not on our side. [Most Americans] will only support my liberalism to a certain degree. When I fight for the right of an Arab woman to become a doctor, you will stand by and donate to the New Israel Fund. But if I say 'Jerusalem is an apartheid city,' which it is—Jerusalem is the worst place in the world in terms of citizenship laws—American liberals get goosebumps."[3]