1)Anti-Israel activists at Durban were funded by Ford Foundation
2)Transparency a concern as millions go to Mideast
3)Audit of Palestinian group suggests lax funding controls
4)How aware is Ford Foundation of way its funds are being used?
new york | The Ford Foundation, one of America’s largest philanthropic institutions, also happens to be one of the largest funders of groups engaged in anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic and pro-Palestinian activities, according to a recently completed JTA investigation.
Indeed, through its Cairo office, Ford has extended more than $35 million in grants to some 272 Arab and Palestinian organizations during the two-year 2000-2001 period alone — the most recent years for which data is available — plus 62 grants to individuals that total more than $1.4 million, according to Ford’s Web site as accessed in mid-October 2003.
But the Ford Foundation may have given even more. According to the findings of a two-year investigation, the foundation, which is not affiliated with the Ford Motor Co., may be giving money indirectly to scores of anti-Israel and Palestinian non-governmental organizations, or NGOs.
Take for example, the case of The Palestine NGO Network, or PNGO, an umbrella group of 90 Palestinian organizations that is funded in part by the Ford Foundation.
The 2002 annual report of the Washington-based Advocacy Institute lists the PNGO as a “partner.”
Yet 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.
The investigation involved interviews with dozens of individuals in seven countries, as well as a review of more than 9,000 pages of government and organizational documents
Ford foundation officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a written statement, asserted: “The Ford Foundation takes the threat of possible misuse of grant funds for terrorism very seriously. We share the concern of the U.S. government to minimize the risk that grant funds might be diverted for terrorist purposes. We comply fully with all legal requirements established by U.S. law and regulation.”
However, the activities about some of the organizations tell a different story.
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 (occupied Palestinian territories) during the last week.”
The Ford Foundation has not ignored Jewish groups. Ford has granted several million dollars to American Jewish and Israeli left-leaning peace and social justice organizations, including $500,000 to the American Reform 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.
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.
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 five-year grant to be administered by a joint Ford-NIF enterprise.
Although the foundation has made a number of grants to both pro-Palestinian and left-leaning Israeli groups, this investigation has not identified any instances of Ford monies being linked to terrorism. However, despite more than two dozen attempts, in writing and by phone, over a several-week period, Ford officials responsible for external communications refused to answer any questions regarding past or present investigations regarding the misuse of specific funds.
David Harris, executive director of AJCommittee, said it is “unfortunate” that Ford “is unwilling to go on the record, to explain or clarify its policy” regarding specific grantees.
In a recent speech, the foundation’s president, Susan Berresford, acknowledged, “Addressing root causes [of injustice] often means making new kinds of arrangements in public policies, community and power relationships. It is different from traditional charity — feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless.”
AJCommittee’s Harris offered a different view of Ford’s policies: “We are struck by the scores of Palestinian NGOs funded by Ford, a number of which have deeply disturbing and troubling records on Israel and Jews.”
Edwin Black, who headed JTA’s study of the Ford Foundation, is the author of the newly released “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race” (Four Walls Eight Windows), which investigates corporate philanthropic involvement in American and Nazi eugenics. To read more about his investigation, please visit our Web site at www.jweekly.com.