MIDEAST GIVING GOES MAINLY TO PALESTINIAN, ISLAMIC GROUPS
By EDWIN BLACK Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON
— The Ford Foundation disburses approximately $500 million annually
through 13 offices worldwide, to grantees of all descriptions, in
dozens of countries.
Each year, the
foundation, with an estimated $10 billion in assets, makes some 2,500
awards spanning the realms of art, education, development, and social
justice.
In the process, Ford
practices globalization just as a multinational commercial corporation
would, deftly weaving monies in and out of its offices and recipients,
in a complex web of funding.
But the
Ford Foundation’s product is not commercial — it is philanthropic.A
large portion of that annual philanthropic expenditure is devoted to
what it terms “human rights and social justice” — that is, not to
traditional relief and aid programs, but to advocacy, activism, and
agitation.
Ford carefully monitors all
programs and materials enabled by its funds, maintains the foundation’s
vice president for communications, Alex Wilde.
Various
grantees also confirmed that Ford requires detailed submissions of
printed items and Web site development plans, sometimes two or three
times a year.Hence foundation officials remain keenly aware of the
fruits of their philanthropy.
There is
no easy way to identify how much money the scores of anti-Israel and
Palestinian advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs,
actually receive from Ford. This is because significant funds or
program benefits are also channeled through other not-for-profit
organizations and even overseas government agencies.
For example, the 2002 annual report of the Washington-based Advocacy Institute lists the Palestinian NGO Network, or PNGO, as a “partner.”
In
February 2003, the Advocacy Institute brought a group of PNGO fellows
to Washington in a Ford-funded program “to strengthen PNGO’s advocacy
capacity.” The program involved “message development, coalition
building, media,” as well as “access and persuasion of decision
makers,” according to a statement that appeared in mid-August on the
institute’s main Web page.
Ford
records indicate that the foundation in 2000 granted the Advocacy
Institute $180,000 “to strengthen the role of a network of Palestinian
NGOs.”The money for PNGO is tallied among the foundation’s U.S. grants,
not those of the Cairo office.
Just a
year later, in August 2001, PNGO was one of the main groups pushing for
anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N.World Conference Against Racism in
Durban, South Africa.
To be sure, Ford
has also granted several million dollars to American Jewish and Israeli
peace groups. For example, Ford in the past has granted $500,000 to the
American Reform Judaism movement’s Mideast peace program, known as
“Seeking Peace, Pursuing Justice,” which seeks to mobilize North
American Jewry for social justice in Israel.
Ford
also funds several Israeli-based dissident and human rights groups that
campaign for Palestinian justice. The list includes such Israeli
Palestinian rights advocates as B’Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, and
Hamoked.
B’Tselem currently receives
$250,000 for what Ford databases and reports describe as “monitoring
human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, documenting violations,
and advocating for policy changes.”
Rabbis
for Human Rights has been granted more than $250,000 for what Ford
databases and reports describe as “rabbinically-based educational and
organizing activities promoting human rights policies by Israel in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”
Rabbi
Arik Ascherman, the group’s executive director, said the Ford money has
been used to develop a Web site, place newspaper advertising, and bring
other rabbis to Israel to learn about human rights.
Last
year, Hamoked was granted $300,000 for what Ford’s databases and
reports describe, in one summary, as “advocacy and legal action to
promote human rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories facing
human rights violations by Israeli authorities.”
B’Tselem
and Rabbis for Human Rights, while staunchly advocating for Palestinian
human rights, have also vocally and publicly condemned the campaign of
Palestinian suicide bombings and other terrorism aimed at Israeli
civilians.
Mr. Ascherman spoke favorably of Ford, commenting, “Our experience with Ford has been very positive.”
He
also said that, while “it would be wrong for a funder organization to
have a heavy-handed thumb editing,” in general, grant makers should
“ensure the funds are spent for the goals they support, and I would
like to think the goals of the Ford Foundation do not include
anti-Semitism.”
“We at Rabbis for
Human Rights obviously abhor anti-Zionist organizations and
anti-Semitism,” said Rabbi Brian Walt of the group’s North American
branch.
The Ford Foundation also funds
the Washington-based New Israel Fund for its activities supporting and
promoting social change in Israel. Since 1988, the Ford Foundation has
provided more than $5 million to the New Israel Fund, a coalition of
Israelis, North Americans, and Europeans seeking to promote human
rights and justice issues in Israel.
Ford
has just announced it would increase its funding to “peace and social
justice groups” in Israel through the New Israel Fund with a $20
million fiveyear grant to be administered by a joint Ford-NIF
enterprise.
Aaron Back, Ford’s former program officer for Israel, will oversee the new funding.
The
money is designed to “increase our funding in Israel and help build the
capacity of civic organizations vital to strengthening its
democracy,”according to Ford’s president, Susan Berresford.
The
move will shift future grant-making from Ford offices in New York to
the New Israel Fund. It is not yet clear which groups will receive
money from the donor-advised fund. The overwhelming majority of Ford’s
monies for the Middle East are granted to pro-Palestinian and Islamic
rights groups.
The list extends for
pages. For example, last year, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in
Gaza received $100,000 for what Ford databases and reports describe as
“community-based advocacy work on economic, social and cultural rights
in Gaza.”
The Al Mezan Center works
closely with the International Solidarity Movement, which stages civil
disobedience actions to obstruct Israeli security forces operating in
the territories. The center also operates a Web site, at www.mezan.org,
that seeks to document alleged Israeli atrocities and violations of
international law, and that also denounces Israel’s war against the
Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas.
A
recent typical Al Mezan Center news release began,“The Israeli
Occupation Forces (IOF) have blatantly escalated their aggression
against Palestinian civilians in the OPT during the last week.”
Al
Mezan is one of the many Palestinian NGOs that refer to the Israeli
Defense Forces as Israeli Occupation Forces. OPT is its abbreviation
for “occupied Palestinian territories.”
Augmenting
its Ford funding, Al Mezan also receives funding from the Swiss Agency
for Development and Cooperation, the International Commission of
Jurists in Sweden, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and
several other U.N. and European Community sources.
A
second Palestinian agency, operating under the name Health,
Development, Information and Policy Institute, received one $60,000
Ford grant under “Media Arts and Culture,” plus a second award for
$75,000 under “Sexuality and Reproductive Health.” The institute
operates an incitement Web site, www.palestinemonitor.org, dedicated to
mobilizing world action against Israel and Zionism. Its main page
offers recommended activism.
For
example, a page on the site, as of mid-August, sub-headlined “How can
you take action for the Palestinian cause?” offered two Palestinian
links, one of which is: “Boycott Israeli Goods.” Clicking on that link
leads to another site, www.boycottisrael.org, which includes a list of
American companies to be boycotted for doing business in Israel,
including Johnson & Johnson, Disney, and Starbucks.
In
mid-August, Palestine Monitor’s own “Activism” page offered
enthusiastic coverage of a September 2002 attempt by pro-Palestinian
protesters to enter Caterpillar’s Washington premises for the purpose
of serving a so-called citizens-arrest warrant for “war crimes” related
to selling bulldozers to Israel.
A
third entity, the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre,recently
received three grants totaling $365,000 to create what Ford databases
and reports describe as “media services for the foreign press and a
weekly electronic magazine,” as well as “enhancement of media
activities related to the crisis situation.”
The
center publishes “The Palestine Report,” which can be found at
www.palestinereport.org. This Web site employs dramatic imagery and
testimony to portray Israel as an apartheid state guilty of war crimes,
violations of international law, and repeated massacres.
As
of early October,one of the center’s main Web site features was a
clickable section entitled “From Revolution to Revolution,” which
“focuses on internal Palestinian politics, political strengths, and
cracks in the armor of unity.”
A
prominent “Resources”list links to the Web sites of six Palestinian
factions. Several of them are listed by the State Department as
terrorist groups, including the People’s Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas.
When
the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre was asked whether other
organizations could be listed as well,an official explained,“We only
link to the biggest and best organizations.”
A
State Department spokesman for the Near East Affairs bureau who viewed
“The Palestine Report” and its link pages to terrorist sites declared,
“I am uncomfortable with the funding of this site and especially these
links — very uncomfortable.”
Yehudit
Barsky, director of the American Jewish Committee’s division on Middle
East and international terrorism, added, “I think this demonstrates
that we in the United States have not paid attention — foundations can
be used in a way no one can imagine. Here we see a Web site promoting
terrorist organizations.The Ford Foundation just did not care.”
During
this investigation, Mr.Wilde refused to answer any questions regarding
PNGO,the Policy Institute,the Jerusalem Media and Communications
Centre, or any other aspect of the foundation’s involvement with
Palestinian NGOs.
Nor would the foundation’s deputy media director,Thea Lurie, or media associate Joe Voeller.
But
in a six-page written response to questions that the foundation
released only after this investigation was completed, Mr. Wilde said:
“We are a grant making organization. We support grantees for
agreed-upon activities and do not dictate what they should say.”
The
statement also said: “Our human rights work reflects a commitment to
principles that go beyond partisanship and politics, to basic rights
and protections that human beings possess by virtue simply of being
born.”
During a visit to Ford’s
headquarters in New York, foundation officials brushed off questions
about anti-Israel agitation. Quipped one senior Ford official:
“Anti-Zionism is in the eye of the beholder.”
A TOWER OF MONEY The Ford Foundation’s headquarters in Manhattan. DAVID KARP/JTA
