Left-wing charities donated $10M to group tied to Palestinian terrorism, documents show
Gabe Kaminsky
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Influential liberal foundations have poured millions of dollars into an anti-Israel charity in Arizona raising money for a Palestinian terror-linked group, according to tax forms reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
Alliance for Global Justice faced an IRS complaint on Tuesday for allegedly skirting federal law by soliciting cash for Collectif Palestine Vaincra, a French partner of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S. designated terror group. This same Arizona group has received over $10 million in grants from major left-leaning charities since 2019, when payment processors began freezing donations to the charity’s partner over its terrorism ties, records show.
LEFT-WING CHARITY FACES LEGAL COMPLAINT OVER FUNDRAISER FOR PALESTINIAN TERROR-LINKED GROUP
“This issue with American nonprofits supporting terrorism-related Palestinian causes has a long and undistinguished history,” Victoria Coates, ex-deputy national security adviser for Middle East and North African affairs under former President Donald Trump, told the Washington Examiner.
“By funneling money into these groups, they support the PFLP,” said Coates. “They are perpetuating the very terrorism that keeps the Palestinian people in a cycle of poverty and violence. It’s unconscionable.”
AFGJ, which bills itself as “anti-capitalist” and “progressive,” is an offshoot of a group called the Nicaragua Network that supported the socialist Nicaraguan Sandinista regime. AFGJ fiscally sponsors a swath of groups with ties to the PFLP, a Marxist–Leninist faction responsible for hijacking planes and bombings.
Nonprofit groups sometimes fiscally sponsor other entities that, in turn, do not retain tax-exempt status under the IRS. This arrangement allows those sponsored to receive services such as payroll, donation processing, and legal oversight.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, one group AFGJ sponsors, counts CPV as a coalition member. PayPal, Plaid, and Donorbox blocked donations to Samidoun in 2019 because of its PFLP ties. Mastercard, Visa, and American Express did the same in 2020.
Discover, the credit card company, began restricting donations to AFGJ in 2021, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
“It is clear that Samidoun and CPV are each an alter ego of the designated terror organization PFLP and AFGJ’s activities in support of PFLP violate 501(c)(3) rules on unlawful activity, including violations of 18 USC 2339B, for providing material support to a U.S. designated foreign terror organization,” wrote Zachor Legal Institute, a legal think tank fighting antisemitism, in its Tuesday IRS complaint.
Still, between 2019 and 2021, 11 deep-pocketed liberal foundations supported AFGJ. The largest donations have come from the Tides Center, a major left-wing grantmaker, and the Tides Foundation, its sister group that was also founded by Democratic activist Drummond Pike.
The center donated over $5 million to AFGJ in 2020 and over $82,000 in 2019, tax forms show. Most of the 2019 money was earmarked for a then-project under AFGJ called Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, which sought to curb gun violence and fight racial profiling.
It is unclear whether the movement is still active, and its website redirects to Indonesian gambling ads.
The other 2019 Tides Center grant was earmarked for La ColectiVA, an AFGJ-sponsored “Latinx” social justice group. The Tides Foundation gave $480,000 in 2019 to AFGJ and $2 million in 2020, which followed the over $540,000 in grants it handed AFGJ between 2014 and 2018.
“These money flows demonstrate Big Philanthropy is no longer establishment-liberal but radical,” Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative think tank, told the Washington Examiner. “This could be called a threat to democracy, especially since AFGJ prefers authoritarian pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Venezuela, and even North Korea over actual American democracy.”
Two major donors of AFGJ have been New Venture Fund and Windward Fund, which are managed by Arabella Advisors, the largest Democratic-linked dark money network in the United States. In 2020 and 2021, New Venture Fund gave $188,000 to AFGJ to support Philly Thrive, a left-wing climate group.
Windward Fund, which focuses on environmentalism and has seen its finances balloon as Democrats prioritize green energy policy, granted $225,000 to AFGJ in 2021. Marguerite Casey Foundation, a Seattle-based racial justice group that has called to “defund” and “abolish” police, gave $450,000 in 2020 to AFGJ.
The Raikes Foundation, another liberal grantmaker, gave $225,000 in 2020 to AFGJ. The organization was founded by Jeffrey Raikes, a former Microsoft executive who was CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation between 2008 and 2014.
“Whenever you engage with an organization like this, you’re exposing yourself and your personal security,” said Coates, now a national security fellow at the Heritage Foundation, referring to groups bankrolling AFGJ. “Which just shows you how closely irresponsible the whole thing is.”
AFGJ also received $160,000 in 2021 from Planned Parenthood and over $41,250 from the Ford Foundation, which has long been one of the largest nonprofit groups furthering the Democratic agenda. The Schmidt Family Foundation, a group founded by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy Schmidt, donated $100,000 in 2020 to AFGJ.
A spokeswoman for Eric Schmidt declined to comment on the donation.
AFGJ donors also include Borealis Philanthropy, which has partnered with the Ford Foundation to raise money for the Movement for Black Lives, an over-50 group coalition that has funded the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. BLM’s leaders are being accused of stealing over $10 million from the charity’s donors following multiple Washington Examiner reports on its finances.
Movement for Black Lives was formerly sponsored by AFGJ, according to tax records. Women Donors Network, a foundation that bankrolls social justice causes and used to be a project of the Tides Foundation, granted $275,000 in 2019 to AFGJ in support of Movement for Black Lives.
Other notable donors to AFGJ have been Abigail Disney, the 62-year-old granddaughter of Disney co-founder Roy Disney, and also the Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation.
Abigail gave $10,000 to AFGJ in 2020, and the foundation donated $20,000 to AFGJ that same year, records show.
Vijaya Gadde, an ex-senior Twitter executive who has come under fire for playing a role in the censorship of the New York Post’s 2020 Hunter Biden laptop story, donated $5,000 to AFGJ in 2020 with her husband, Ramsey Homsany.
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Arnold Ventures, a purportedly nonpartisan LLC bankrolled by former Enron executive and billionaire John Arnold, donated $5,000 to AFGJ in 2020. In addition to funding many causes, the LLC has granted millions of dollars to organizations linked to the left-leaning movement to fight purported “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
“Arnold Ventures does not work on foreign policy,” a spokesperson for Arnold Ventures told the Washington Examiner. “A $5,000 employee-directed contribution to Alliance for Global Justice following the death of George Floyd in 2020 was designated to support racial justice initiatives. This was part of the organization’s employee charitable giving program.”