SYDNEY, Australia — Former Israeli lawmaker Naomi Chazan’s visit to Australia was cancelled following allegations the organization she heads helped provide information for the Goldstone report.

Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, was invited by the Union for Progressive Judaism (UPJ) – the Australian equivalent of the Reform movement – to address fundraisers for the United Israel Appeal in Melbourne and Sydney next week.

But her invitation was withdrawn last week following a maelstrom over allegations by right-wing student organization Im Tirzu that NIF had disbursed more than $7 million (US) to 16 NGOs that had provided 92 per cent of the negative information contained in the controversial United Nations report on last winter’s Gaza war.

Danny Lamm, president of the Zionist Council of Victoria, which withdrew its decision to co-host Chazan at a function in Melbourne this weekend, told The Age newspaper: “Organizations that they have funded have done damage to Israel, and as a consequence we don’t want to have anything to with the New Israel Fund.”

Steve Denenberg, of the UPJ, said: “As soon it had become obvious that the focus of her visit would be diverted from the original purpose of raising funds for Israel, we had no choice but to mutually cancel the visit.”

NIF’s CEO, Daniel Sokatch, slammed the “baseless allegations” of Im Tirzu, telling the Jerusalem Post they were “the worst kind of vicious hate speech.”

“I’m very disappointed that the [UPJ] has decided to bow to extreme and unfounded right-wing accusations,” Chazan said. “They are capitulating to ideas that are antithetical to the essential world view of their movements.”

Chazan was a member of Knesset with the left-wing Meretz Party between 1992 and 2003.