In the wake of October 7, the exponential rise in antisemitic violence, incitement, intimidation, and harassment on and around campuses in the United States is not the product of spontaneous protests of individuals. Rather, they are tightly coordinated and well-funded by a network of radical and often antisemitic non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Within Our Lifetime, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Samidoun. Under the guise of human rights and justice, these NGOs work to undermine the economic, military and other ties between US and Israel, and to besiege and divide the US Jewish community. 

All of these groups have supported and justified the October 7th massacre, as well as other attacks. Many of the NGOs in the network are directly linked to designated Palestinian terror organizations.

A common feature of all these NGOs is non-transparent funding and structure, as documented in detailed NGO Monitor research. The policy recommendations at the end of this report focus on this issue.

Mapping the NGO Presence on Campus

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) – founded 1993 at UC Berkeley 

  • SJP in different forms  is the campus organization most directly responsible for creating a hostile campus environment saturated with anti-Israel propaganda agendas and events, BDS initiatives, and intimidation. Each SJP chapter claims to operate independently although the evidence demonstrates close coordination and shared resources, apparently coordinated through the amorphous National SJP framework. .
  • In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas attack, SJP published a statement referring to the violence as a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” SJP additionally claimed, “This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.”
  • National SJP and the numerous SJP branches are not registered as 501(c)(3) nonprofits and their structures and operating processes are not transparent. They are not subject to laws requiring financial disclosure. The small amounts distributed by student governments for clubs like SJP do not match the scope of activities. 
  • SJP founder Hatem Bazian is also the co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). According to AMP, “We also work in broad-based coalitions and support campus activism through Students for Justice in Palestine.” Little is known about donors to AMP, which reported $1.7 million in income and $1.2 million in expenses in 2021. 
  • Non-transparent funding: WESPAC Foundation, a Westchester, New York-based organization registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, serves as the fiscal sponsor for National SJP. 
  • For more information on SJP and AMP funding, read NGO Monitor’s report, “Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP): Available Funding and Other Information.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) – founded 1996

  • JVP refers to itself as the “Jewish wing” of the Palestinian solidarity movement and as “Jews against Zionism,” notwithstanding the fact that many of its activists are not Jewish.
  • JVP’s declared agenda is to create “a wedge” within the American Jewish community, while working toward the goal of eliminating U.S. economic, military, and political aid to Israel. 
  • A major component of JVP’s strategy is exploiting the “Jewish” label to deflect evidence of blatant antisemitism within anti-Israel campaigns.
  • JVP’s anti-Israel and antisemitic activities and rhetoric include the “apartheid” and “genocide” libels, justifying Palestinian “resistance” (euphemism for the mass slaughter of October 7), embracing terrorists, and promoting antisemitic tropes such as a cartoon that depicted Israeli soldiers joyously drinking the blood of dead Palestinians. 
  • Non-transparent funding: Reporting a budget of $3 million in 2021, Jewish Voice for Peace is not transparent about its funding sources. Based on publicly available financial reports from some foundations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (under its “peacebuilding program”) NGO Monitor was able to identify approximately the US-based donors that account for one-third of JVP’s budget. For details, read NGO Monitor’s report, “Jewish Voice for Peace’s Funding Network.” 

Within Our Lifetime (WOL) – known as Students for Justice in Palestine, NYC until 2019

  • Headed by Nerdeen Kiswani, co-founder and former chair of SJP-NYC.
  • Abdullah Akl, a WOL organizer, also serves as the Director of Advocacy & Civic Engagement for the Muslim American Society.
  • Fatima Mohammed, a WOL activist, led CUNY law school’s SJP chapter.
    • In May 2023, Mohammed delivered a commencement speech at CUNY law school calling for a “revolution” against America’s “oppressive” institutions and for her graduating class to “fuel the fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism and Zionism around the world.” During the speech, Mohammed also expressed her support for the Holy Land Foundation, whose founders were convicted of financing Hamas, and described them as “Palestinian political prisoners.”
  • During an April 2024 protest, Akl led a chant calling on Abu Obaida, Hamas’ military spokesman, to bomb Tel Aviv.
  • In February 2024, Instagram deactivated the accounts of Kiswani and Within Our Lifetime due to “violations of community guidelines.”
  • On October 7, WOL published a statement declaring, “We must defend the Palestinian right to resist zionist settler violence and support Palestinian resistance in all its forms. By any means necessary. With no exceptions and no fine print.” 
  • In November 2023, WOL published a map of Jewish and pro-Israel organizations in New York claiming they had “blood on their hands” and calling for people to “Make these locations a stop in your protests. picket and leaflet outside of them, make supporters of genocide uncomfortable.”
  • In March 2022, Instagram banned WOL after it posted a collage featuring women who have engaged in terrorism against Israel, including Leila Khaled and Rasmea Odeh.
  • In June 2021, Kiswani participated in a conference, “Challenging Apartheid in Palestine: Reclaiming the Narrative, Formulating A Vision,” hosted by the Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University. Conference organizers and sponsors, as well as other participants, were linked to various terror groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
  • On July 4, 2021, a WOL event featured protestors cheering while Israeli and American flags were burned.
  • Non-transparent funding: WESPAC Foundation, a Westchester, New York-based organization registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, serves as the fiscal sponsor for Within Our Lifetime. According to its website, WOL used a funding platform called Donorbox; however, the link to donate does not work.

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) – founded 2001

  • USCPR claims to be a “national coalition of hundreds of groups working to advocate for Palestinian rights and a shift in US policy,” and lists JVP, AMP, and WESPAC among its “partners.” 
  • Advocacy rhetoric includes accusations of “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” “war crimes,” and “colonialism.”
  • Exploits the US civil rights struggle by accusing Israel of maintaining a “matrix of control” over the Palestinian population and enacting “laws that discriminate against [Palestinians], much as Black Americans had been treated during the Jim Crow era.”
  • Non-transparent funding: USCPR is a registered 501(c)(3) and claims to receive “the vast majority of its funding from relatively small individual donations throughout the country…;”  total reported 2021 income $1.5 million; received $225,000 (as Education for Just Peace in the Middle East) in 2023-2025 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
  • USCPR is also the “fiscal sponsor” of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC). According to the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the BNC includes the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine – members of this group reportedly include US designated terror organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 
  • USCPR runs a “Palestine Youth Organizing Fellowship” to “nurture campaigns and tactics that translate grassroots power—local boycott campaigns, student divestment wins, and local policy changes—into change in deeply unjust federal policies.” According to the NYPost, “USCPR provides up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based ‘fellows’ in return for spending eight hours a week organizing ‘campaigns led by Palestinian organizations.’” Part of the fellowship training is to encourage fellows to “rise up, to revolution, not reform.”

WESPAC (Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation) – founded 1974

  • WESPAC serves as fiscal sponsor for some of the NGOs responsible for antisemitism on campuses, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Within Our Lifetime. WESPAC also fulfills this role for U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Adalah-NY, and the Palestinian Youth Movement USA.
  • WESPAC’s sources of income are mostly unknown. Public records reveal a handful of foundational donors, including from large donor-advised charities that further obscure the original donors.
  • WESPAC uses “apartheid” and other demonizing rhetoric, campaigned for convicted PFLP terrorists, and contextualized the October 7th atrocities. 

Samidoun 

As documented in detail, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is closely linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group. A common theme of Samidoun demonstrations and rhetoric is the legitimacy and importance of “armed resistance.” For instance, at an April 30, 2023 event in Ottawa, Samidoun founder and head, Khaled Barakat, called on participants to “salute” the military wings of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP, as well as Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed terror groups.

Legal designations

  • In February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Samidoun a terrorist organization and “a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” In November 2023, Germany banned Samidoun for violating the its Basic Law (Article 9(2)) and its Associations Act; namely, it “impairs and endangers the peaceful coexistence of Germans and foreigners,” “advocates and calls for the use of violence as a means of enforcing political interests,” and “supports associations that initiate, advocate and threaten attacks against people or property.”
  • Barakat lived in Germany from 2016 to 2019, but his application for a residency permit extension was rejected, and a four-year entry ban was imposed, “owing specifically to what the German Interior Ministry called Barakat’s proclivity for violent, antisemitic rhetoric.” In March 2022, the Berlin Administrative Court (VG Berlin), rejected his appeal, finding that Barakat is at least close to the PFLP,” and that he “repeatedly participated in activities of the PFLP in Germany and/or appeared publicly under the PFLP label.”
  • According to media reports, in April 2024, the Belgian government accused Samidoun’s coordinator in Europe, Mohammed Khatib, of being an “extremist hate preacher” and moved to expel him from the country.
  • Samidoun was incorporated in 2021 in Canada as a not-for-profit organization.

Support for terrorism

  • On October 7, 2023, Samidoun, wrote, “As the morning dawns on 7 October 2023, the resistance (euphemism for Palestinian terrorists) is rising throughout occupied Palestine, smashing the siege on Gaza with a comprehensive offensive confronting the occupier by land and air, taking control of Palestinian land, seizing occupation settlers and soldiers and launching thousands of missiles as Palestinian resistance forces fight to advance return and the liberation of Palestine.”  Samidoun then called on its allies to “express their support for the heroic Palestinian resistance, raise the flag of Palestine and the banners of resistance, and organize popular, political and media demonstrations and events to expose the Zionist crimes against our people in occupied Palestine…The heroic Palestinian resistance has opened a chapter of battles of dignity and pride at the dawn of October 7, 2023.” (emphases added)
  • Describing an October 10, 2023 rally it had organized in Seattle, Samidoun published a statement that “Demonstrators showed support for the successful Flood of Al Aqsa resistance operation (the Hamas name for the October 7th massacre) and condemned the Zionist retaliatory strikes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza and 75 years of oppression, ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism.” (emphasis added)

Events and advocacy in the US

  • According to its website, Samidoun has promoted numerous events across the US since October 7th.  These include campus protests at Harvard, Columbia, Penn, and other universities.
  • In a November 2023 analysis, the ADL named Samidoun as one of the key groups driving anti-Israel activity in the US.
  • Samidoun founder and head Khaled Barakat and his wife Charlotte Kates spoke at the March 2024 “Resistance 101” event held at Columbia University. Barakat told Columbia student activists that “Your work is so important to the resistance in Gaza.” Kates claimed, “There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas.”

Non-transparent funding: In the United States, the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) served as Samidoun’s fiscal sponsor; multiple online payment processors, including PayPal and Stripe, stopped working with AFGJ.

Funders

WESPAC (Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation) – founded 1974

  • WESPAC serves as fiscal sponsor for some of the NGOs responsible for antisemitism on campuses, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Within Our Lifetime, allowing groups without IRS 501(c)(3) status to receive anonymous tax-deductible donations in the United States. WESPAC also fulfills this role for U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Adalah-NY, and the Palestinian Youth Movement USA.
  • WESPAC’s sources of income are mostly unknown. Public records reveal a handful of foundational donors, including from large donor-advised charities that further obscure the original donors.
  • WESPAC uses “apartheid” and other demonizing rhetoric, campaigned for convicted PFLP terrorists, and contextualized the October 7th atrocities. 

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

  • The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) supports numerous anti-Israel and antisemitic NGOs, including those involved with BDS and campus intimidation, as well as at least one terror-linked group. Statements from RBF officials indicate that they are aware of, and likely intend, the divisive consequences of their grantees’ activities in the US Jewish community. 
  • Among other grants, RBF is providing funding to the following NGOs:
    • Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) – $150,000 in 2023-2026.
    • US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) – $225,000 in 2023-2026 (appears as Education for Just Peace in the Middle East)
    • Palestine Legal –  $240,000 in 2023-2026, via the Tides Center 
    • IfNotNow – $100,000 since 2020

Tides Center

  • The Tides Center, part of the Tides Network, serves as the fiscal sponsor and passthrough – ,allowing groups without IRS 501(c)(3) status to receive anonymous tax-deductible donations in the United States – and provides administrative and fundraising support to “historically excluded groups who face systemic barriers.” The various Tides entities reported a combined total income of nearly $1 billion in 2022.
  • Palestine Legal and the Adalah Justice Project are among the NGOs that receive funds through Tides.
  • WESPAC  (see above) also receives funding through the Tides Network. In 2022, WESPAC received $97,000 from the Tides Foundation.
  • In June 2021, the Tides Center published an article accusing Israel of “pursuing a form of apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing, and “settler colonialism.”

Legal Support

Legal services are provided to these NGOs and activists involved in campus antisemitism by a number of legal NGOs. Since the protests have begun, these NGOs have offered legal representation for students who have been arrested and have assisted protestors in filing lawsuits.

Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)

  • Active in politicized “lawfare” cases against Israeli and American officials, including a lawsuit – filed in conjunction with PFLP-linked NGOs – accusing President Biden and the US government of supporting “genocide” in Gaza. 
  • In FY 2022-2023, total income was $9.9 million; total expenses were $10.9 million.

Palestine Legal

  • Palestine Legal works to provide legal cover for those advancing the BDS agenda on college campuses.
  • In April 2024, Palestine Legal filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of four Columbia University students and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) after students were arrested. In March 2024, Palestine Legal, together with NYCLU, sued Columbia over its suspension of SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace.
  • Palestine Legal does not publish financial information, reflecting a lack of transparency and accountability. Lists Tides Center, a San Francisco-based organization that funds a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs, as its fiscal sponsor.
  • In 2016-2023, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, via the Tides Center, granted $425,000 to Palestine Legal.

National Lawyers Guild (NLG)

  • NLG’s “Palestine Subcommittee” “advocates for justice in Palestine, organizes delegations, provides legal support to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movements, works to support Palestinian political prisoners, and works to implement Palestinian rights.”
  • According to its “2014 Convention Resolution,” NLG is “committed to dismantling the capitalist economic system in our nation and replacing it with a genuine political and economic democracy that holds the promise of financially achieving economic and social equality for all the people of our nation.”
  • In April 2024, following disruptions and arrests at Emerson College, “volunteers with the Massachusetts chapter of the National Lawyers Guild spent much of the day locating students who were arrested and organizing legal representation for them.”
  • National Lawyers Guild (NLG) maintains a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (NLGF) for tax deductible donations. NLG explains that the “primary role of the Foundation has been to support the sustainability of the NLG National Office through direct grants on an annual and as-needed bases.” In addition, the Foundation “serves as fiscal sponsor for NLG chapters and committees that do not have 501(c)(3) status.”

CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations)

  • In May 2024, CAIR-NY posted on Instagram that it “has been inundated with requests to aid students facing arrest following campus protests.” It also provided “a simple script to call the respective district attorney’s office at each university location and urge them to drop charges.”
  • In April, CAIR-California published a “guide for students” to “stay safe by knowing their rights while protesting on campus.” CAIR-LA also stated that is was coordinating “with criminal defense attorneys to ensure legal representation for students who have been arrested and for them to understand the legal process.”

Other NGOs

IfNotNow

  • Since October 7th, IfNotNow has been highly active and visible with anti-Israel activities including protests and other disruptions. Its main target has been the mainstream US Jewish community.
  • IfNotNow has shown “solidarity” and “support” for student protesters, including in Los Angeles, New York City, and Boston. For instance, on May 1, IfNotNow posted a statement standing “With Columbia, CCNY Student Activists” writing, ““Brutalizing student activists doesn’t make Jewish students, or any students in NYC, safer. It only serves to protect U.S. financial and political support for an unending, brutal assault on Gaza.”
  • According to its website, donations to IfNotNow are processed through ActBlue Charities, “a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.” In FY 2021-2022, total income was $514,447; total expenses were $460,014. IfNotNow also operates the 501(c)(4) organization “IfNotNow Movement.” In FY 2021-2022, total income was $170,142; total expenses were $138,258.
  • IfNotNow does not report any donor information or sources of funding on its website, reflecting a complete lack of transparency and accountability. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund website lists a grant of Independent research shows that IfNotNow received $100,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund “for general support” in 2020-2023. 

Adalah Justice Project

  • Adalah Justice Project is very active in anti-Israel campaigns, and these increased following October 7. 
  • In social media posts, Adalah Justice Project expressed its “full solidarity with students who are setting up encampments across the country until their Universities fully divest from the Israel-US genocide machine” and “firm solidarity with Students for Justice in Palestine chapters…as they hold their complicit universities accountable for aiding and abetting Israeli genocide.”
  • Funding is received through Tides; the donors are hidden. 

Policy Recommendations:

  • Congressional  action requiring IRS tax exempt NGOs to report on foreign donors (DAWN, HRW, etc)
  • Requirement for registered campus organizations (SJP etc) to submit audited financial reports including all donors and expenditures (salaries, rent, travel)
  • Investigations of relevant NGOs and funders for possible material support for terrorism (Samidoun, SJP/AMP, etc.)