A Hungarian-born Jew, progressive billionaire George Soros has said that “the call for boycott and divestment of Israel is wrong” — but he has now been tied to numerous anti-Israel groups involved in the anti-Semitic BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement.
Breitbart reported that Soros has ties to at least four BDS-affiliated groups that have been banned from Israel, and “scores” more U.S.-based organizations that militate against the Jewish state, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Women’s March.
Hacked emails from the Open Society Foundations in 2016 revealed a plan to “challenge Israel” for its “racist” policies, and Soros has also expressed opposition to Israel in his public statements.
Soros linked to BDS groups
Israel published a list this month of 20 BDS groups that it is banning from Israel, which includes four Soros-linked American organizations. The groups — the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and CODE PINK — are all active on American college campuses and have been funded by or linked to groups funded by Soros.
Most of the funding went to the groups through Soros’ philanthropy, the Open Society Foundations, and another Soros group, the Tides Foundation. Breitbart also cited non-governmental watchdogs including NGO Monitor, which tracks non-governmental organizations involved in BDS. Some groups have also disclosed their Soros funding on their websites.
Firstly, Breitbart reports, the AFSC has received funding in the past from Soros’s Tides Foundation, according to Tides’ website, as well as the Open Society Foundations, according to NGO Monitor. The group has led boycotts against Hewlett Packard and SodaStream for their affiliations with Israel, endorsed BDS on its website, and even accused Israel of harboring a new “apartheid.”
Moreover, Students for Justice in Palestine has partnered with Palestine Legal, a BDS lawfare group. According to the legal group’s website, it is a “fiscally sponsored project of the Tides Center,” a subsidiary of the Tides Foundation. Students for Justice in Palestine has been involved in campus divestment campaigns which seek to sever ties between American universities and Israel, according to NGO Monitor.
SJP has partnered with a third group, Jewish Voice for Peace, which may have connections to Soros according to NGO Monitor, but the group has not disclosed its donors. The two groups hosted a campus event at Columbia University in 2016 which described Palestinian terrorists as “freedom fighters.”
CODE PINK, a radical social justice group, has also received funding from Tides.
Anti-Israel billionaire
While Soros’ links to BDS groups are more obscure, Soros money has been connected to prominent left-wing groups that some say have come to embrace the BDS movement and anti-Semitism, including Black Lives Matter and the ACLU, which has waged its own legal anti-Israel campaign, Breitbart reported:
The heavily Soros-financed American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been leading the legal opposition to proposed state and federal anti-BDS legislation. Numerous prominent Democrats, including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders and Dianne Feinstein, have cited ACLU arguments to justify their public opposition to pro-Israel, anti-BDS bills.
Soros has also donated more than $250 million to partners of the Women’s March, which has been criticized for welcoming anti-Semitism within its ranks and associating with anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan and which has announced anti-BDS policy as part of its official agenda. Far-left group MoveOn.org is also funded by Soros and has pushed against anti-BDS legislation.
While Soros has not publicly endorsed BDS, his present and past connections with BDS and anti-Israel groups have prompted the ire of Israel’s government. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized Soros for “funding organizations that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself.”
Indeed, Soros’ anti-Israel politics reflect a pro-Palestine progressive wave that some say is creating an anti-Semitism problem for the American left. Several freshman Democrats are supporters of the BDS movement, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who was accused of invoking an anti-Semitic canard when she accused American Jews of having double loyalties to the Jewish state.
Soros has also funded the New Israel Fund (NIF), an Israel-based group supporting divestment, and J Street, a progressive lobby which has been described as the leftist answer to the pro-Israel lobby the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). J Street lobbied for the Iran deal, which Israel strongly opposed.
Soros recently celebrated that AIPAC is “no longer monolithic or the sole representative of the Jewish community” in a Washington Post op-ed.
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