Capitalists Finance Anti-Israel "Leftists"
Not to be outdone by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund turns out to be funding at least two noxious anti-Israel bodies, the campus-based "Jewish Voice for Peace" and the American Friends Service Committee, an offshoot of the Society of Friends, a religious group usually known as the Quaker church which ordinarily takes pride in preaching a pure pacifism in line with Jesus' supposed call on his followers to "turn the other cheek".
Some of the stunts performed by the "Jewish Voice for Peace" cost a fairly large amount of money. Consider:
On February 2, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an anti-Israel organization that seeks to “drive a wedge” in the Jewish community over support for the Jewish State, distributed 10,000 copies of a propaganda pamphlet masquerading as The New York Times. Claiming to be a special edition of the paper, the publication featured “articles” praising BDS and blaming Israel for the latest round of Palestinian terrorism over the past four months.The high production value of the lookalike—described by the Times as “deliberately designed to trade on our name and mislead users”—should direct focus towards those that provided the funds required to make such a stunt possible. Aside from the cost of printing thousands of copies of the multi-page fake, JVP and its partners devoted resources towards launching a faux Times website and Twitter account to accompany the handouts.Here is some info on the American Friends Service Committee and its tie to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF):
While JVP does not publish information on its financial backers, some of their supporters proudly announce their bankrolling of this group. In 2015, JVP received a two-year, $140,000 grant from the New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF). The private fund made the allocation through its “Peacebuilding” program, which claims to “advance just and durable peace by supporting innovative and collaborative approaches and policies for conflict prevention, management, and transformation.” It is unclear how financing groups that demonize Israel, promote discriminatory boycotts, and aim to silence its advocates can be considered a “collaborative approach” that will advance peace.
JVP is far from the only hostile and offensive group to receive RBF’s blessing. In 2015, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)—a group that regularly refers to “Israeli apartheid” and Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians—received $50,000 for its “Israel Program.” The Quaker group is a close ally of JVP, andpromotes BDS initiatives throughout the United States, including on university campuses. AFSC’s Dalit Baum authored a 2014 divestment resolution at Loyola University and has spoken numerous times with the pro-BDS group Students for Justice in Palestine. Similarly, JVP and AFSC have partnered to host “BDS summer camps” to train college activists. [full article by Yona Schiffmiller here]According to the article that I have quoted, the AFSC received only $50,000 from the RBF. But don't worry about the AFSC. It is a very well funded body and has many sources of funding, some of them government-connected. It maintains offices in Ramallah, Jerusalem and many other places throughout the world. All that takes money.
Now, getting away from the specific details, is it not curious that groups conventionally identified as "Left" enjoy generous funding from capitalist bodies, foundations representing super rich capitalist families and founded with money from the profits --in some cases-- of inhuman exploitation of poor working men and women? When the smug and self-righteous and "do-gooder" recipients of Ford Foundation funds receive their thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions, do they think of how the money was made upon which the Ford Foundation was founded?
Many of these "do-gooder" and pro-"peace" and pro-"human rights" bodies support Hamas, the branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that has established a statelet in Gaza. One addled mind who teaches, if you please, in an American university, one Judith Butler, informed the benighted world that Hamas, as well as Hizbullah, was part of what she called "the Global Left." Are these bien pensant "do-gooders" and "progressives" and "leftists" aware that the main financial support of their dear Hamas, their "leftist Hamas," is the super wealthy sheikdom of Qatar on the Persian Gulf? If they are so aware, does it bother them that slavery is practiced in Qatar under very cruel conditions which have led to the deaths of hundreds of foreign slave laborers in Qatar over the past few years as they build facilities for the 2022 world soccer championships, the Mondiale? And that Qatar contributed to the corruption of the highly corrupt FIFA, the international soccer/football/ body? If Qatar did not hand out huge bribes to FIFA board members to vote to award the sheikdom with the Mondiale for 2022, why would anybody have thought for a moment that the Persian Gulf sheikdom with its 50 degrees centigrade temperatures in the summer, would be suitable for hosting a soccer championship?
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UPDATES
3-27-2016 Ziva Dahl tells more on funding by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund [here] from New York Daily News.
Labels: AMIA bombing, bds, boycott, Ford Foundation, Hamas, Qatar, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
2 Comments:
Just to add something related to the Masquarades that JVP does in the US, leaves some of us rational and reasonable beings bewildered. Besides their usual campaigns of boycott and anti-Israel rallies and meetings (which I rarely attend, if I do it is just to see how it all play out, and probably I have time of my hands).
A few weeks ago, the JVP group of Metro Detroit, in a careful media campaign connected the major new event of the water lead poisoning in the city of Flint Michigan with that of Water use of Israel against the Palestinians. They called the theme the following: "Water as A Weapon- Rights to Water in Palestine, Detroit, Flint and Globally".
In the montage of the flier we see a picture of a Arab boy trying to collect water from a outdoor faucet, which looks like giving droplets (meaning that the water has been cut off by Israel or most like Israeli settlers). I could not believe the theme. Why connect lead poisoning which is serious health hazard with an outlier problem of water in Israel and Westbank. I simply could not believe why these educated American Jewish people can do such a thing. Of course, they had a Palestinian activist (an expert in water rights) lined up to speak. I believe that water problems are real and should be discussed, but connecting a serious health problem in Flint Michigan with a Palestinian false problem is beyond be. They should have join instead the thousand of concerned citizens who descended on the Governor state capitol to demand justice for the children of Flint who have suffered and will suffer the rest of their lives with the lead poisoning.
JVP is almost a case of delusional political activism, that bear no connection to real life.
By Sammish, at 11:17 PM
In the 21st century, "Peace" has become the last refuge of the scoundrel.
By Eliyahu m'Tsiyon, at 1:55 AM
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