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More than 3,500 people attended the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit this weekend — a time for anti-Israel activists to “assess, strategize and prepare for what is required of us in the next phase of [Palestinian National Liberation].”
The conference hopes to capitalize on anti-Israel protests and encampments plaguing college campuses, causing millions of dollars of property damage, cancelling graduations, even running Jewish students off school property.
Though activists claim the antisemitic movement is driven by regular people, evidence suggests outside donors are planning and sustaining large, disruptive protests.
NYPD Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry speculated student protests had received external funding as early as April 2024, noting the presence of paid protesters and identical equipment at college encampments.
“Look at the tents.” Daughtry told Fox 5 reporters. “They’re all the same type of tents — the ones we saw at NYU are the same as the ones at Columbia. I think someone is funding this.”
Subsequent reporting from The New York Post found protesters at Columbia university received free Dunkin Donuts coffee, expensive sandwiches and even entire rotisseries chickens — hardly the fare of struggling college students.
The Daily Citizen set out to find where this outside funding could be coming from. We uncovered more than fifteen organizations funneling money to anti-Israel protests through five groups working directly with protesters
The following report documents money passed between tracked organizations in the last ten years, revealing a tangled web of money transfers among entities with surprising connections to each other and the pro-Hamas causes
Fiscal Sponsorship
A fiscal sponsor generally provides financial and administrative infrastructure to smaller charities for a fee.
When an organization sponsors multiple groups, it’s nearly impossible to track which donations go to which entities.
This waterfall of money ends with the activist groups putting on protests — the ones printing posters, pitching tents, scheduling speakers and posting advertisements on social media.
The Daily Citizen tracked five of these “grassroots” groups — but their financial activities were less transparent than their movements online. None of the organizations disclose their donors and several process donations through a fiscal sponsor, concealing the money’s origins.
WESPAC is the fiscal sponsor of Students for Justice in Palestine and Within Our Lifetime, two of the most active groups in the anti-Israel protests on college campuses. WESPAC discloses neither its donors nor its donations. Money sent to the group can only be tracked if donor organizations disclose their contributions.
- $504,000 from Elias Foundation between 2016 and 2022
- $170,000 from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors between 2021 and 2022
- $117,700 from Sparkplug Foundation between 2015 and 2022
SJP is a nationwide network of college chapters responsible for engineering the encampments plaguing college campuses, which they call “campus Palestine solidarity organizations.”
Columbia banned SJP from campus in November for “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.”
As NGO Monitor notes, SJP’s activities far exceed the money colleges usually give to campus clubs. Some of this extra money likely comes from college donors who request a portion of their contribution go to SJP. The remainder comes from direct donations processed by WESPAC.
In both cases, the contributions aren’t public.
This protest group organizes some of most disruptive pro-Hamas protests in New York. It’s led by Nerdeen Kiswani, whom Columbia banned last November after she called for “intifada revolution.” She defied this ban to attend Columbia’s anti-Israel encampment in April.
This is the funding vehicle for U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, according to The Wall Street Journal. Like WESPAC, it discloses neither its donors nor donations.
- $700,000 from Open Society Foundations between 2018 and 2022.
- $590,000 from Rockefeller Brothers Fund between 2019 and 2023
- $60,000 from Grassroots International
This protest group purports to “provide resources and strategic support to the U.S.-based Palestinian solidarity movement” — including paying students to protest.
USCPR’s Youth Palestine Organizing Fellowship pays students stipends to aid in the abolition of “white supremacy, settler colonialism and capitalism.” They prioritize candidates who are “ready to build a campaign targeting a government, institutional, or corporate target.”
At least three of these fellows — Nidaa Lafi, Craig Birckhead-Morton and Malak Afaneh — spoke at or were arrested after participating in anti-Israel protests on college campuses.
Self-described as the “largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world,” JVP is comprised of 83 local chapters — many of which help agitate for college protests.
Columbia banned the group a for “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” after hosting a “Resistance 101” Zoom session for students, the Post reports. Columbia further expelled one of JVP’s student members for “inviting the leader of a proscribed terrorist group” to speak at the session.
Howard Horowitz, the President of WESPAC, is a member of Westchester’s JVP chapter.
- $875,000 from Open Society Foundations between 2017 and 2022
- $490,000 from Rockefeller Brothers Foundation between 2019 and 2024
- $237,000 from Tides Foundation between 2018 and 2022
The money flowing to “on the ground” activists originates with the heavy hitters — charitable organizations with billions of dollars to spend supporting their interests.
These big players proved difficult to pin down. Most are dark money groups, which means they don’t disclose who donates to them. They rarely donate to activist organizations directly, preferring to funnel their support through “middlemen” groups instead.
The Daily Citizen connected money from six of these white whales to pro-Hamas groups.
This group of charities is funded by billionaire George Soros and controlled by his son, Alexander. Open Society Foundations funneled more than $52 million into tracked organizations — the most of all the heavy hitters.
- $17.3 million to the Common Counsel Foundation between 2017 and 2021
- $15 million to the Tides Foundation between 2016 and 2022
- $14.2 million to the Tides Center between 2016 and 2022
Soros contributed more than $700,000 to Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, which funds the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). These donations paid USCPR fellows to participate in protests.
The grant-making arm of the progressive dark money group Tides Nexus, Tides Foundation has contributed at least $44.7 million to tracked organizations.
- $39.1 million to Tides Center between 2018 and 2022
- $1.4 million to Common Counsel between 2018 and 2022
- $1.4 million to Groundswell Fund between 2018 and 2022
Tablet identifies Tides Nexus “as a major backer of the anti-Israel protest movement across the country.” Accordingly, Tides appears in connection with almost every tracked organization.
Tides Center conducts fiscal sponsorships on behalf of Tides Nexus, which means it makes fewer direct contributions to pro-Hamas organizations than its sister organization. The vast majority of its spending flows back into Tides Foundation.
- $9.2 billion to Tides Center between 2018 and 2022
- $102,500 to Peace Development Fund in 2022
- $42,500 to Groundswell Fund in 2021
Tides Center fiscally sponsors Palestine Legal, an organization dedicated to defending activists who face legal repercussions after standing for “Justice in Palestine.” Between 2018 and 2024, tracked organizations donated $545,000 to Tides Center specifically earmarked for Palestine Legal.
DONOR-ADVISED FUND
Donor-advised funds are charitable accounts people can open through financial institutions. The institution invests money deposited in the account and makes donations to the account owners’ chosen charities.
Donor-advised funds obscure the identity of account owners because all donations are made in the financial institution’s name.
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is a donor-advised fund “continuing the Rockefeller family’s legacy of thoughtful, effective philanthropy.” Unsurprisingly, the group stewards millions of dollars belonging to scions of the Rockefeller family.
The fund has contributed $36.3 million to tracked organizations.
- $22.4 million to Tides Center between 2017 and 2022
- $9.1 million to Groundswell Fund between 2017 and 2022
- $3.8 million to Tides Foundation between 2018 and 2022
In the last ten years, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has donated $13.1 million to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which directly supports several “on the ground” organizations.
A private family foundation flush with money from the Rockefeller dynasty, Rockefeller Brothers Fund has contributed $21.4 million to tracked organizations.
- $13.1 million to Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors between 2019 and 2024
- $4.5 million to Tides Foundation between 2019 and 2021
- $2.3 million to Tides Center between 2019 and 2024
Like the Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund donates directly to Education for a Just Peace in the Middle East — the funding vehicle for U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
Of the $2.3 million it donated to the Tides Center, it earmarked $515,000 for Palestine Legal.
This charitable donor-advised fund through Morgan Stanley bank donated $4.4 million to tracked organizations.
- $3.8 million to Tides Foundation between 2014 and 2021
- $464,100 to Tides Center between 2016 and 2021
- $100,000 to WESPAC between 2020 and 2021
The fund is one of the biggest single donors to WESPAC, which sponsors no less than three of the groups orchestrating anti-Israel protests — National Students for Justice in Palestine, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Within Our Lifetime.
Between the “heavy hitters” and the “on the ground” organizations stand the middlemen — organizations that take money from big players and give it to activist organizations.
The six middlemen tracked by the Daily Citizen frequently donate to each other, further obscuring where the money comes from.
The Common Counsel Foundation endeavors to “resource movements, aligning and increasing the amount of dollars and social leverage going towards community organizing.” It provides both grants and fiscal sponsorships.
- $17.3 million from Open Society Foundations between 2017 and 2022
- $1.4 million from Tides Foundation between 2017 and 2022
- $516,000 from Groundswell Fund between 2017 and 2022
- $740,000 to Groundswell Fund between 2020 and 2022
- $318,400 to Tides Foundation between 2020 and 2021
- $172,000 to Tides Center between 2020 and 2021
Common Counsel donated $85,000 to WESPAC between 2020 and 2022. Donations prior to 2020 are not publicly available.
This foundation ostensibly donates to organizations making the Atlanta area “more equitable and prosperous for everyone who calls it home.”
- $830,000 from Open Society Foundation in 2020
- $115,000 from Tides Foundation between 2020 and 2022
- $2.5 million to Tides Centers between 2019 and 2020
- $1.1 million to Tides Foundation between 2020 and 2022
- $15,000 to WESPAC in 2020
There is no clear reason for an organization designed to benefit Atlanta to make any of these donations.
With a little over one billion dollars in assets, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta can support local organizations independently without donating to a giant like Tides. Tides has no obvious initiatives in Atlanta that would warrant a donation.
It’s even less clear why it would donate money for “civil rights/social action/advocacy” to a regional organization in New York The foundation’s website doesn’t address Palestine or its donation to WESPAC.
Grassroots International was founded in 1983 “amid the Israeli invasion of Lebanon,” according to its website, failing to explain that Israel invaded after several cross-border attacks by the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
Today, the group claims to “support liberation struggles in South Africa, Eritrea, the Philippines, and Palestine.”
- $1.2 million from Tides Foundation between 2018 and 2022
- $285,000 from Bafrayung Fund between 2018 and 2022
- $150,000 from Open Society Foundations in 2021
- $789,000 to Grassroots Global Justice Alliance between 2015 and 2022
- $193,000 to Tides Center between 2018 and 2022
- $60,000 to Education for Just Peace in the Middle East between 2021 and 2022
The group disseminates an online toolkit to stop the “genocide” in Gaza, which includes a recommendation for people to assist Students for Justice in Palestine in getting universities to “divest from genocide and apartheid.”
The toolkit directs people to U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights to find a nearby protest.
Grassroots International further donated $10,000 to WESPAC in 2020.
Groundswell Fund provides “grantmaking, capacity building and fund organization” for movements. The decades-old group claims to be “a leading funder of intersectional organizing across nearly every major social change movement.”
- $9.1 million from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors between 2017 and 2022
- $2.3 million from Open Society Foundations between 2016 and 2022
- $1.4 million from Tides Foundation between 2018 and 2022
- $516,000 to Common Counsel Foundation between 2017 and 2022
- $352,500 to Tides Center between 2017 and 2022
- $130,000 to Tides Foundation between 2021 and 2022
Groundswell donated $32,500 to WESPAC between 2017 and 2021.
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance describes itself as a “multi-racial, multi-sectoral alliance of more than 60 member organizations” designed to “engage strategically with movements abroad.”
- $789,108 from Grassroots International between 2015 and 2022
- $150,000 from Bafrayung Fund between 2020 and 2022
- $125,000 from Open Society Foundations between 2020 and 2021
- $21,200 to Grassroots International in 2021
- $20,000 to Common Counsel in 2021
- $10,000 to Tides Center in 2019
One of the group’s members is Palestinian Youth Movement — another organization sponsored by WESPAC.
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance endorsed and advertised the People’s Conference for Palestine, the anti-Israel conference held this weekend by Students for Justice in Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement and several other organizations sponsored by WESPAC.
The Peace Development Fund provides fiscal sponsorships and grants to organizations “funding social justice and peace.”
- $713,600 from Tides Foundation between 2018 and 2022
- $594,900 from Open Society Foundations between 2019 and 2021
- $102,500 from Tides Center in 2022
- $37,281 to Grassroots International between 2021 and 2022
The Peace Development Fund donated to the Students for Justice in Palestine at Berkley in 2001, though it’s unclear how much it gave.
A statement at the top of the fund’s website supports the anti-Israel student protests, calling them “non-violent” and arguing they have been “misconstrued and met with excessive force.”
Money for anti-Israel protests doesn’t always originate with heavy hitters. The Daily Citizen tracked four private funds contributing an individual or family’s personal fortune to anti-Israel protests. These funds aren’t as wealthy as some of the big players, but they often donate more money directly to “on the ground” organizations.
The Bafrayung Fund distributes the wealth of Rachel Gelman, heiress to the Levi Strauss fortune. Featured in a New York Times article about “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism,” Gelman describes herself as “anticapitalist, anti-imperialist and abolitionist.”
- $325,000 to Tides Center between 2020 and 2022.
- $285,000 to Grassroots International between 2018 and 2022
- $260,000 to Groundswell Fund between 2018 and 2022.
The fund donated $60,000 to WESPAC between 2019 and 2022.
The Elias Foundation distributes the fortune of private equity investor James Mann.
- $504,400 to WESPAC between 2016 and 2022
- $173,200 to Tides Foundation between 2016 and 2022
- $17,000 to Grassroots Global Justice Alliance between 2016 and 2022
The Elias Foundation has reportedly been donating to WESPAC since 2006, though donations prior to 2015 are unavailable. The foundation is the largest single donor to WESPAC among the tracked organizations.
In 2018, the foundation gave WESPAC $63,000 to “hire an activist” and another $6,900 go to “training an activist.” These contributions are consistent with one of the Elias Foundation’s “core interests” — “leadership development and activist training.”
This foundation distributes the wealth of former Wall Street investment banker Felice Gelman (no apparent relation to Rachel Gelman). Gelman previously served on WESPAC’s Committee for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.
- $107,700 to WESPAC between 2015 and 2022
- $25,000 to Palestine Legal (sponsored by Tides Center) between 2018 and 2019
- $11,500 to A Jewish Voice for Peace between 2014 and 2020
In 2022, Sparkplug donated $20,000 to WESPAC for Student for Justice in Palestine to “create a ‘Students for Justice in Palestine National Network’” and “restructure the student movement to include a representative decision-making body, regional and national communication networks, and shared resources, unifying SJP’s across North America for the first time.”
In the last ten years, Sparkplug has spent an additional $70,000 funding groups that train and pay anti-Israel activists to operate in Palestine and Israel.
The Kiblawi Foundation is a private family fund managed by Nada Kiblawi, the child of Palestinian refugees displaced during Israel’s founding. The foundation claims to ”primarily support educational and cultural programs for Palestinian Youth in the refugee camps of Lebanon and Palestine.”
- $5,000 to Palestine Legal in 2022
- $500 to WESPAC in 2022
- $350 to A Jewish Voice for Peace between 2021 and 2022
The Kiblawi Foundation illustrates how independently wealthy, lesser-known families can impact the anti-Israel cause. Though the foundation lacks deep pockets, its donations go entirely to pro-Palestinian — and often anti-Israel — organizations.
While anti-Israel protests are the most visible part of the growing antisemitism in America, they are far from the root of the problem. Educating ignorant students and sanctioning colleges might be part of the solution — but the anti-Israel movement won’t be stopped until Christians expose its vast network of financial supporters.
If this investigation reveals anything, its that the roots of this wicked network run deep — planted and protected by some very powerful people.
But the Daily Citizen is far from cowed. We will continue to call attention to those who financially support pro-Hamas causes.
We encourage you to join us in boldly opposing antisemitism in all its forms — financial or otherwise.
After all, what shall we fear?
Additional Articles and Resources
Some Pro-Hamas Protesters and an Ill-Behaved Child Walk Into a Chili’s…
College Faculty Voice Support for Antisemitic Protests
A Stunning Contrast of Two University Lawns
Jewish Students urged to Flee Columbia Following Antisemitic Protest
Campus Protests Expose Antisemitic Rot in Academia
Iran’s Failed Attack on Israel — What happened and Why It’s Important
Antisemitism — What It Is and Its Connection to the Israel-Hamas War
Women’s Rights Group Silent on Hamas Sexual Violence, Analysis Shows
