The Money Trail Behind Jewish Voice for Peace

Jewish Voice for Peace is a fanatical anti-Israel group and a leading proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign to toxify Israel. As CAMERA has documented, the group disseminates the most vicious smears against the Jewish state, including blood libels. For example, in a guest editorial in the Detroit Free Press in 2008, Jewish Voice for Peace repeated a libelous charge that Israeli troops had committed a massacre in the village of Tantara during the 1948 war for Israeli independence. The individual who had fabricated the story, a graduate student under the tutelage of anti-Zionist professor Ilan Pappe, had admitted under oath in a libel suit brought against him that there was no evidence to support the charge of a massacre. Yet the guest editorial writers continued to promote the libelous smear.

Despite ample evidence of Jewish Voice for Peace’s mendacity, there is an ongoing effort by Israel’s detractors in both the media and academia to portray the cultish group as a legitimate participant in the discussion about Israel and the Palestinians.

On May 12, 2016, CAMERA received information about a course claiming to be affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Global Studies Department that utilized Jewish Voice for Peace as its main information source to teach high school students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the media, Jewish Voice for Peace is cited by journalists and commentators who share the same far left orientation. The New York Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof cited Jewish Voice for Peace in a column on Aug. 3, 2011 in which he discussed Jewish groups “seeking balance” in the United States’ involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Kristof depicted the group in benign terms as one that “supports divestment campaigns against companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories.”

J Street, a group funded by radical billionaire currrency speculator George Soros and an obscure Asian businesswoman named Consolacion Esdicul, also has engaged with the group. While officially not endorsing Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street has welcomed its representatives to its conferences and co-sponsored various letters promoting the Iran deal and other activities with negative repercussions for Israel.

A recent report by the Israel-based NGO Monitor illuminates those who fund the anti-Israel agitation of Jewish Voice for Peace. They include familiar anti-Israel money sources as well as some surprising additions.

In the 2014-5 period, the largest visible donations were provided by:

Rockefeller Brothers Fund- ($140,000 in 2015)
Tides Foundation- ($49,477 in 2014)
Firedoll Foundation- ($25,000 in 2014)
Schwab Charitable Foundation- ($158,800 in 2014)
Jewish Communal Fund- ($25,100 in 2015)
Most other grants were below $30,000.

The Rockefeller Foundation, along with several other foundation donors found on the list contribute to a variety of anti-Israel pressure groups.

The single largest source was the Schwab Charitable Foundation, but it’s important to note that this is a donor-advised fund. Using such a fund individuals make tax-deductible contributions into a special account, and only later direct money from that account to non-profit organizations. Contributions from a donor-advised fund are decided by the donor and not by the company managing the fund, in this case Schwab.

According to NGO Monitor, $448,000 went to Jewish Voice for Peace through such Schwab donor-advised funds between the years 2012-2014.

The NGO Monitor report provides documentation of a money trail that funds an emotion-driven public relations war against Israel. It also exposes the duplicity of those in the media, academia and even the Jewish community who portray Jewish Voice for Peace as a legitimate voice within the Jewish community.

Update: This post has been modified to clarify that contributions from a Schwab donor-advised fund are decided by the donor and not by Schwab.