An anti-Israel group that has been accused of funding Hamas and other Palestinian terror factions received a boost from the philanthropy of Democratic megadonor George Soros before helping to lead protests across the United States against the Jewish state.
The Soros-backed Foundation to Promote Open Society, a major liberal grantmaker in the billionaire’s Open Society Foundations empire, steered $250,000 in 2022 to Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, a charity that has reportedly fiscally sponsored the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee, according to newly released grant records. That same charity, which is also known as the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, is one of several pro-ceasefire rally organizers sympathizing with Hamas, whose Oct. 7 attack against Israel has since killed over 1,200 people.
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The Soros-tied cash transfer appears to undercut efforts by the philanthropist to oppose antisemitism, which has surged by at least 400% in the U.S. since Oct. 7, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Foundation to Promote Open Society also granted $450,000 combined in 2018 and 2021 to Education for Just Peace in the Middle East — the legal name USCPR registers under with the IRS, records show.
USCPR’s national conference was notably canceled by a Hilton hotel in October after a Washington Examiner report on how “Squad” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was set to deliver the keynote speech. The anti-Israel network was revealed by Tablet in 2018 to sponsor the BDS National Committee, which counts the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine as a member, according to the BDS committee website. In turn, the council has included U.S.-designated terror groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Palestinian Liberation Front, in its membership, according to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank and the U.S. State Department.
“This may have allowed USCPR to facilitate tax-exempt donations to foreign political entities, possibly in violation of IRS laws governing fiscal sponsorships,” Benjamin Baird, director of Middle East Forum Action, a watchdog tracking terror-tied nonprofit groups, told the Washington Examiner.
The Foundation to Promote Open Society’s 2022 grant to the anti-Israel network was for “general support,” while a prior 2018 grant was “to expand the grantee’s organizing support for national partners and to upgrade their communications capacity in order to promote freedom, justice, and equality in a world without racism and oppression,” according to records.
USCPR, which signed an August 2022 statement condemning Israel’s decision to designate six Palestinian groups as proxies for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, has a “resources” tab on its website called “Find a Protest: Stop the Gaza Genocide.” The tab includes social media links to anti-Israel protests in major cities, such as a Monday afternoon event to pressure the Oakland City Council in California to support a ceasefire.
The Oakland protest is being organized by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, a project of the Tides Center that has celebrated terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, according to the Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor. Moreover, USCPR helped organize the pro-Palestinian Nov. 4 National March on Washington, which saw antisemitic vandalism and terror-linked nonprofit groups defacing statues, the Washington Examiner reported.
Jewish Voices for Peace, a pro-Palestinian group whose advocacy arm co-sponsored a mid-November protest at the Democratic National Committee that turned violent, has been a member of USCPR’s network, according to NGO Monitor. So, too, have American Muslims for Palestine and WESPAC Foundation, a left-wing charity in New York that has campaigned to free Ahmad Saadat, the long-imprisoned leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the watchdog said.
The Foundation to Promote Open Society isn’t the only influential liberal grantmaker lending a helping hand to USCPR. In recent years, Education for Just Peace in the Middle East received $580,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a private foundation created in 1940 by the sons of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
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Open Society Foundations and USCPR did not reply to requests for comment.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund did not reply to requests for comment.
