Pro-Hamas Capitol Protest Backed By Democratic Dark Money
The ‘Jewish anti-Zionist groups’ demonstrating against an Israeli airstrike that never happened are paid for by the WASP establishment
October 22, 2023
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from the October 19, 2023 edition of The Scroll, Tablet’s daily afternoon newsletter. Click here to subscribe.
About 300 protestors were arrested in the U.S. Capitol on October 18, 2023, during a demonstration opposing Israel’s war in Gaza and demanding the U.S. government push for a cease-fire.
The demonstration, which featured a speech by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–MI) repeating the discredited story of an Israeli airstrike killing hundreds of Gazan civilians at the Al-Ahli Hospital, was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and If Not Now (INN), described by The New York Times as “Jewish anti-Zionist groups.”
While these groups are certainly anti-Zionist, it would be more accurate to call them “generic progressive groups with Jewish branding,” considering who funds them. According to website NGO Monitor, JVP received $340,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund between 2019 and 2023 and $75,000 from the Tides Foundation in 2019. For the much-smaller INN, those numbers were $160,000 and $45,000, respectively.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is not exactly known for its Jewish philanthropy. As Sean Cooper reported for Tablet in “Bending the Jews,” the fund has limited its donations to groups—such as JVP, INN, and Bend the Arc—that can be relied on to put a “Jewish” gloss on the coalitional priorities of the modern Democratic Party, like opposing voter ID laws and astroturfing protests against Ron DeSantis.
The Tides Foundation, meanwhile, is part of the Tides network, a Democratic dark-money group funded by Peter Buffett and other progressive billionaires, on the board of which sit several former Obama officials.
Tablet’s afternoon newsletter edited by Jacob Siegel and Park MacDougald.
