Ford Foundation Still Funding Anti-Israel Organizations

By Michael J. Jordan
July 24, 2008
The Jewish Press
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                          In August 2001, Israel became a punching bag for several thousand human rights activists from throughout the world who were gathered for a U.N. anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa.
 
                       But while the Jewish state may have been the target, the Ford Foundation also ultimately suffered a serious black eye after it emerged that many of the anti-Israel activists in Durban were egged on by Ford-backed, pro-Palestinian groups.
 
                        Hoping to head off a similar debacle, Ford says it will not pay for any organization to participate in the first follow-up conference to Durban, slated for April in Geneva.
 
                        This announcement comes nearly five years after Ford, America’s second-largest philanthropic institution, adopted what experts describe as the most stringent guidelines on grantees.
 
                        Yet despite such steps and the foundation's public criticisms of what transpired seven years ago, Ford today is funding several organizations that engage in the Durban strategy — a two-pronged tactic launched at the ‘01 conference to paint Israel as a racist, apartheid state and isolate the Jewish nation through boycotts, divestment and sanctions.
 
                         These revelations are the result of a months-long JTA investigation into Ford funding after the highly influential foundation revised its guidelines under pressure from the U.S. Congress.
 
                        The pressure followed an October 2003 JTA expose, “Funding Hate” which found that no donor at the Durban anti-racism forum was more responsible than Ford for financing the pro-Palestinian NGOs that rammed through the NGO Forum a document be one of the most provocative ever produced under the umbrella of the United Nations.
 
                        Despite its revised guidelines, Ford appears unable — or unwilling — to prevent some of its grantees from lending support to the movement that was launched in Durban.
 
                        The new JTA investigation (which can be read in full at www.jta.org) examined a large cross-section of Ford grantees that speak out on the Middle East conflict and found that several signed a major 2005 boycott and divestment petition against Apartheid Israel.”
 
                        As Ford was announcing its decision not to support the 2009 anti-racism forum, its Web site touted a 2008-09 grant for $305,000 to the Arab NGO Network for Development, which features a map on its Web site that fails to note the existence of Israel.
 
                        One of the two Palestinian members on its coordination committee is the pro-boycott Palestinian NGO Network, or PNGO , a key organizer at Durban.
 
                        Although PNGO is no longer receiving grants from Ford, the network works closely with at least three Ford grantee organizations.
 
                        Ford, which has assets above $13 billion and gives away more than $500 million annually, was endowed with funds donated by Henry and Edsel Ford but no longer maintains any ties to the Ford Motor Co.
 
                        The foundation does not support groups that solely advocate boycotts, but signing onto a boycott or divestment effort is not itself a deal breaker for funding, according to Ford's vice president of communications, Marta Tellado. 
 
                        With preparations under way for the follow-up U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Geneva, there are strong indications that Israel again will be singled out for opprobrium.
 
                        Tellado said the Ford Foundation wants no part of it. Experience totally informs our decision,” she said. “This reflects our concern for the meeting's ability to be constructive.
 
                        This and other steps — like severing relations with several zealous NGOs – garner Ford praise from even its toughest critics. After JTA revealed the Ford-Durban link in 2003, Ford issued its new guidelines for grantees.
 
                        Experts say the revisions were the most extensive seen in philanthropic circles. They elicited howls of free-speech infringement from the American Civil Liberties Union and a slew of top U.S. universities.
 
                        Under the guidelines, Ford grantees must agree not to carry on propaganda or promote or engage in violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any State, nor will it make subgrants to any entity that engages in these activities.
 
                        Although no Ford grantee was linked to terrorism per se, some appeared to condone violence and terror. Ford has since stopped funding those groups.
 
                        Yet JTA has uncovered several grantees that engage in the twin “Israel is apartheid” and “boycott and divest” campaigns. 
 
                         With its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement, Ford has provided through its Cairo office more than $200 million over the past half-century to some 350 NGOs in the Middle East.
 
                        So perhaps it was natural that Ford would support many groups attending the landmark Durban meeting.
 
                        Most of the media attention went to the accompanying NGO Forum in 
Durban, which attracted thousands of activists from around the world, aimed the harshest rhetoric at Israel and inspired several incidents of anti-Jewish epithets and the distribution of anti-Semitic literature.
 
                        The extremism sparked a walkout by the American and Israeli delegations. But the real story, in retrospect, was the launch of the current “Israel is apartheid” movement.
 
                        In that Durban NGO document — mostly rejected by U.N. member-states during their official conference that followed — plotters unveiled a game plan: “Complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state, as was done in the case of South Africa … sanctions, embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, and military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel,” coupled with “condemnation of those states supporting, aiding, and abetting the Israeli apartheid state, and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity, including ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide.”
 
                        Ford’s vital funding of the Durban ringleaders helped re-inject terms like apartheid, boycott and divestment into mainstream discourse about Israel. The foundation’s then-president, Susan Berresford, apologized for its role in Durban in a Nov. 17, 2003 letter to U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on the heels of the four-part JTA investigation Funding Hate.”
 
                         Ford's revised guidelines, produced in November 2003 with input from 
Nadler's office and Jewish groups, altered a long-standing hands-off policy for its grantees and annual allocations worldwide. 
 
                        After Ford’s role in the Durban conference was highlighted and the foundation tightened its grantee guidelines, it also doled out millions to assorted Jewish organizations. 
 
                        Now comes the move to distance the foundation from the follow-up to Durban, which will be held in Geneva on U.N. grounds, where security and protocol can be more effectively controlled.
 
                        Yet a re-examination of that initial Berresford letter along with recent interviews with current Ford officials suggest that Ford’s rejection of groups that incite terror and anti-Semitism does not extend to the boycott and divestment movement.
 
                        The Palestinian NGO Network was one of the more notorious Durban ringleaders and continues to circle within the Ford orbit. PNGO, according to JTA's 2003 series, had received $1.4 million from Ford over the years. Though it no longer receives Ford funding, its relations with several current Ford grantees raises questions about whether some funds Ford gives to groups associated with the network might end up supporting PNGO in some way.
 
                        PNGO is heavily involved with two of the prime campaigns associated with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movements, known as BDS: the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. The latter recently won U.N. accreditation to attend the 2009 anti-racism forum.
 
                        PNGO is also linked to three current Ford grantees. It is a coordinating committee member of the Arab NGO Network for Development; an executive board member of the Euro-Mediterranean NGO Platform (the Arab NGO Network is also a member); and is associated with Muwatin, which it thanked online for lending a hand with the November strategy conference in Ramallah.
 
                        Even if money is not given specifically to bash Israel, NGO workers often speak of “fungibility” — money that is given from one donor, for one specific purpose, frees up money for NGOs to use for another purpose.
 
                        To monitor its grantees, Ford says it conducts random Web site checks and responds to specific complaints from peers in the field, lawmakers and other respected figures. If Ford deems it necessary, Tellado said, the foundation will sever, freeze or even recover funding.
 
                        But Ford officials declined to name grantees they have punished this way, nor will the foundation say how many NGOs the foundation has cut loose since revising its guidelines.  (JTA)