Two weeks ago, I urged my alma mater, Temple University, to rescind its offer of the position of president to Dr. Jason Wingard. Until last week, Wingard served as chairman of the Tides Foundation, which funds, features, elevates and provides organizational and operational support for anti-Semitic, anti-Israel boycott and demonization groups, including Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC); Adalah Justice Project USA (AJP), Palestine Legal and Dream Defenders, and their leaders who oppose Israel’s very existence. Tides’ promotion of Israel-hatred is far worse than my previous article indicated, and includes direct demonization of Israel and grant-making to at least 13 more of the most virulent anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and BDS groups.
Demonization of Israel: Tides’ article, “Meet These Extraordinary Palestinian Leaders,” prominently featured on its website with a picture of a Hamas-clad youth waving a Palestinian flag, begins with ugly demonization of Israel, and endorses anti-Israel BDS groups and leaders. The article falsely states: “We are witnessing—in real-time—massive, ongoing state-sponsored [Israel] violence against Palestinians,” and falsely accuses Israel of “pursuing a form of apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism.” It then falsely claims that these phrases “are not hyperbole but descriptions of what Palestinians actually face.” Tides’ article further accuses Israel of “blatant human-rights violations that Palestinians suffer day after day, year after year.”
Additional Support for Anti-Israel/BDS Groups: Tides Foundation’s Form 990 IRS filings for 2018 and 2019 (the only years available after Wingard joined Tides’ board on Jan. 1, 2018), and some other available Tides’ financial materials reveals shocking additional grants to anti-Israel groups. This appears to be only a partial list of the support that Tides provides to anti-Israel groups through its welter of related organizations.
(Note that Tides controls which groups get grants from Tides’ donor-advised funds. IRS rules require that the 501(c)(3) organization “maintaining the funds must have the ultimate authority over how the assets in the funds are invested and distributed.”)
- Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) $200,000 in 2018-19: IMEU promotes the BDS movement against Israel and feeds anti-Israel reports to the media, with repeated false accusations that Israelis are perpetrating violence against Palestinian Arab civilians and children.
- Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) $175,500 in 2018-19: The BDS and anti-Israel demonization-group JVP’s anti-Semitic “Deadly Exchange” campaign seeks to hold Jews responsible for state violence. JVP falsely accuses Israel of teaching “worst practices” to American police forces, including extrajudicial executions, shoot-to-kill policies, police murders, racial profiling, massive spying, deportations, detention and attacks on human-rights defenders. JVP was repeatedly on The Anti-Defamation League’s “Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups” list. Even the left-wing Forward called JVP “the fringe anti-Israel group that supports the boycott of Israel.”
- Code Pink $105,400 in 2018-19: Code Pink was also on ADL’s “Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups” list. Code Pink promotes anti-Israel BDS and falsely accuses Israel of “human-rights violations” and “occupation”; absurdly calls for holding Israel and Israeli officials accountable for “war crimes” and “breaches of international law” after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad launch thousands of rockets at Israel; opposes aid to Israel; confronted U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to hold Israel “accountable” for defending herself; and launched a campaign in 2019 to free Khalida Jarrar, the top operative of the designated terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Judea-Samaria. ZOA led the singing of “Am Yisrael Chai” to counter Code Pink when its leaders broke into and disrupted a speech by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel shortly before his death. Wiesel, in frail health, was trying to urge the Senate to oppose the catastrophic Iran deal because it furthers Iran’s genocidal ambitions. Members also disrupted a congressional panel discussion led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Wiesel discussing hopes for peace in the Middle East.
- Bend the Arc, $160,000 in 2018-19: Last week, Bend the Arc tweeted “solidarity” with and “we will continue to rise with you” to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after another round of Omar’s anti-Semitic, Israel-hating rhetoric. It collaborates with IfNotNow’s anti-Israel protest actions.
- Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Philadelphia and Arizona, $60,000 in 2019: Hamas-affiliated CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial for funneling millions of dollars to the terrorist Hamas. CAIR officials were sentenced to prison for funneling $12 million to Hamas. CAIR also slanders U.S. pro-Israel groups as “hate groups,” and defends Hamas and Hezbollah as “resistance movements.” Top CAIR officials have promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and blood libels, including that Jews murder Palestinians to steal their organs.
- National Lawyers Guild (NLG) $1,030,500 in 2018-19: NLG is a Marxist lawfare organization that provides legal support for BDS movements and Arab terrorists. NLG also supports JVP’s “Deadly Exchange” campaign falsely and maliciously accusing American Jewish groups of funding exchanges in which Israelis teach American police to murder African-Americans. In addition, NLG endorsed and supported Tides-supported Arab Resource & Organizing Committee (AROC)’s “Block the Boat” BDS actions to prevent Israeli-based shipper ZIM from unloading medical and other supplies needed by Americans at U.S. ports around the country.
NLG continues to honor NLG terrorist-assisting lawyer Lynne Stewart’s memory. Stewart was convicted for illegally carrying messages between terror groups and imprisoned “blind sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the deadly 1993 World Trade Center bombing (six dead, more than 1,000 wounded). After Stewart carried a message from the Sheikh to Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, that terror group massacred 60 people, including tourists, in Luxor, Egypt.
- NLG also closely collaborates with the Tides-supported lawfare groups Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in promoting BDS and anti-Israel actions. In recent years, the Tides Center Rockefeller Bros. Fund gave $425,000 to Palestine Legal, including $150,000 last month. Tides Foundation gave $90,893 to CCR in 2018-19.
As my previous article noted, Palestine Legal promotes “mock eviction” campaigns to terrorize Jewish students on college campuses; mounts numerous anti-Israel “lawfare” campaigns; defends hate groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP); advocates against anti-BDS laws; and participates in anti-Israel “Days of Rage” in U.S. cities.
- The Tides Center Rockefeller Bros. Fund also recently granted $410,000 to the Adalah Justice Project USA (AJP). As my prior article noted, AJP is a leading anti-Israel demonization and BDS organization intertwined with Adalah in Israel, which defends terrorists. Adalah USA also lobbies for sanctions against Israel; falsely claims that Israel is mistreating Palestinian “children”; falsely likens Israelis to police who murder African-Americans; and falsely accuses Israel of “indiscriminate war crimes” and similar demonization. Adalah and Tides collaborator Dream Defenders co-authored the M4BL platform that falsely defames Israel as a genocidal, apartheid state.
- The same Tides Center Rockefeller Bros. fund granted $40,000 to the Solidaire Network, which holds events maligning Israel and discussing “bringing Palestinian rights into the broader progressive agenda.” Solidaire is fiscally sponsored by the Tides Foundation.
- IfNotNow (INN) $45,000 in 2018-19. It specializes in sit-ins in the offices of Jewish organizations; anti-Birthright campaigns; campaigns to infiltrate Jewish summer camps to promote Israel-hatred; infiltration of Birthright trips to divert participants to anti-Israel “breaking the silence” trips; false accusations that Israel is “indiscriminately bombing” Gaza; demands to lift the weapons blockade of Gaza (to enable Hamas to import more rockets into Israel with which to attack Israelis); demands to defund Israel; and public events in which brainwashed INN members say Kaddish and mourn for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.
- Tides also funds other endorsers of Tides-supported AROC’s “Block the Boat” BDS campaign to violently prevent an Israeli-based shipper from unloading her cargo, including “Causa Justa,” which received $60,000 in 2018-19.
- The Tides Foundation gave grants to still more anti-Israel groups in 2018-19, including J Street; the Arab American Institute Foundation; the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition (which calls Jews “illegal Israel settlers” and Jerusalem “occupied”); and the Coalition for Peace with Justice, which recently merged into the anti-Semitic BDS group Voices for Justice in Palestine (VJP). It promotes anti-Israel libels such as “Police Brutality from the U.S. to Palestine”; “Israeli Human Rights Abuses”; and “Israelis Troops Kill Peaceful Protesters”; and protested against Knesset members speaking in the United States,
Not surprisingly self-proclaimed “I am not a Zionist” George Soros, who funds numerous anti-Israel groups, is Tides’ most notable funder, having given it more than $22 million, per the detailed analysis of Tides by Capital Research Center (CRC)’s Influence Watch.
Jason Wingard, who as chair of Tides oversaw funding these anti-Semitic, Israel-bashing haters, surely shared many, if not all of these views. He should never be president of any university.
If Temple had done due diligence, it would have never offered Wingard the presidency. Temple must terminate Jason Wingard as its president.
Morton A. Klein is the national president of the Zionist Organization of America.