Top left-wing foundations bankroll activists behind anti-Israel campaign: ‘Propaganda’
Gabe Kaminsky
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Influential liberal foundations fund a “human rights” organization behind a recent anti-Israel campaign to pressure the United States government to revoke a visa for a top Israeli official, records show.
Ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, the charity Democracy for the Arab World Now launched an effort last week to demand the State Department deny entry to Brigadier Gen. Naama Rosen-Grimberg, Israel’s first female military secretary. Democracy for the Arab World Now, which is led by longtime anti-Israel activist Sarah Leah Whitson, has notably been on the receiving end of more than $1 million in grants from top left-wing nonprofit groups helping to shape the Democratic Party’s agenda, including the Ford Foundation, according to grant disclosures.
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The grants are a further window into how Democratic-linked foundations in the U.S. have supported entities taking aim at Israel amid terrorist groups, including Hamas, routinely targeting the country. DAWN, which was founded by the late Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has come under scrutiny due to Leah Whitson’s controversial remarks about Israel — including comments she made in 2020 apparently lamenting a lack of violence in Israel accompanying COVID-19-related lockdowns.
The Ford Foundation gave $1 million in October 2022 to DAWN “to inform U.S. foreign policy debates on human rights and democratization” overseas, according to its website. Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund granted DAWN $50,000 in November 2022 for general support, and the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations network granted $25,000 in 2020 to DAWN, grant database records show.
“Enabled by the Ford Foundation, DAWN promotes false and demonizing propaganda about Israel behind the facade of support for human rights and democracy,” Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, an Israeli watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner. “The false NGO claims about Israel feed demonization and antisemitism, including in the U.S. Congress.”
Herzog came to Washington this week as Israel marks 75 years since its founding. Biden in his Tuesday meeting with Herzog “reiterated his commitment to maintaining a path for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” according to the White House. The Israeli president on Wednesday addressed a joint meeting of Congress, which was boycotted by “Squad” Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI),
— who have all come under fire from Republicans and Jewish groups for their anti-Israel ties.
The “Squad” members and six other Democrats on Tuesday voted against a since-passed resolution offering support for Israel. Tlaib, who in a floor speech labeled Israel an “apartheid state,” notably hosted an event at the Capitol in May lamenting Israel’s founding, which DAWN helped organize, according to a flyer.
“Today, at this moment in my people’s history, gathering on Capitol Hill to celebrate 75 years of Israeli independence with our greatest partner and friend, the United States of America, my soul is overflowing with pride and joy,” Herzog said on Wednesday in his speech, followed by lawmakers giving a standing ovation.
DAWN, which has also equated Israel to an “apartheid state,” alleged in a July blog post that Rosen-Grimberg may be guilty of a “potential war crime” after Israel’s military detained a Palestinian-American man named Jamal Niser for a short period of time. One of DAWN’s board members is Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an anti-Israel group that was targeted in an FBI investigation over whether it steered money to Hamas, according to tax forms filed in 2021.
Awad also used to be the director of public relations for the Islamic Association for Palestine, a defunct organization “described by the U.S. government as part of ‘Hamas’ propaganda apparatus,’” according to the Anti-Defamation League. The board member has said pro-Israel entities “corrupted” the U.S. government and “engaged in similar antisemitic rhetoric,” the ADL says.
“DAWN seeks to hold accountable human rights abusers from governments supported by the United States using the tools available to us under American laws, like Magnitsky sanctions and visa bans,” Omid Memarian, a DAWN spokesman, told the Washington Examiner. “Our focus includes gross violations of human rights by officials in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, and Egypt.
Memarian added that the Ford Foundation “provides general support for DAWN’s work.” The foundation, which disclosed on 2021 tax forms controlling over $20 billion in assets, has long funneled grants to entities targeting the Jewish state, according to NGO Monitor.
Ford gave $6 million between 2019 and 2022 to Amnesty International, which “employs numerous anti-Israel activists and BDS campaigners with well-documented histories of radical activism in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” the watchdog said.
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Open Society Foundations has poured millions of dollars into Amnesty International and its affiliates, while the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave Amnesty International U.S. $50,000 in 2019, according to grant records.
The Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund did not return requests for comment.