Soros, Rockefeller, Pritzker. Some of the big names who put their fortune at the service of President Biden's re-election are also behind the vandalism protests in favor of Palestine that have sprung up at universities across the country, according to an analysis by Politico.
George Soros contributes to those groups through the Tides Foundation, which according to the report gave $500,000 in the last five years to Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the organizations behind the protests. The foundation founded by Soros received $300,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. For their part, Susan and Nick Pritzker of Hyatt hotels founded their own organization to support similar groups.
Although the claims vary, the different groups that led the pro-Palestine protests at educational centers such as UCLA, the University of Texas at Austin (UT) and the University of Virginia agree on one point: repudiation of Biden's policy of supporting Israel. Discontent that has been summed up in the catchphrase "Genocide Joe." A foundation funded by the Pritzkers, for example, supported The Climate Justice Alliance, an organization that participated in marches where that slogan was chanted. The Pritzkers finance both Biden and those who call him genocidal.
Although most donors or those who lead their foundations refused to answer questions from Politico, a spokesperson from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund defended that its beneficiaries support "a wide range of policies," which, they claim, is part of the complexity of the philanthropic apparatus and demonstrates that their work is non-partisan.
Other Democratic donors, such as Elisha Wiesel, are less apologetic:
“Why [is the Rockefeller Fund] giving significant grants to Jewish Voice for Peace, which blamed the horrific Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the United States rather than Hamas?”
At the end of last week the president broke his silence, which lasted about ten days, and criticized the protests, ensuring that "There is the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos." "There should be no place on any campus — no place in America — for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students," he also assured. His biggest donors seem to disagree.
The protests, in the magnifying glass
The financing and organization of university demonstrations has been questioned by various groups since they begun. One of them was NGO Monitor, which noted that far from being spontaneous, the protests are organized by a "network of radical and often antisemitic non-governmental organizations."
"A common feature of all these NGOs is non-transparent funding and structure" they say from NGO Monitor.
After an analysis of funding sources, the institute revealed that these supports are not new: between 2019 and 2021, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund allocated $340,000 to Jewish Voice for Peace. The Tides Foundation awarded him $75,000 in 2019. Students for Justice in Palestine received grants from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors of $80,000 in 2021 and $90,000 in 2022.
The question now is whether the protests, which in some cases have resulted in police intervention on campuses, will lead donors to reevaluate who they give their money to.
