Sunday, December 24, 2023

Guess Who Else Is Funding Pro-Hamas Protests Across the Country


Jeff Charles reporting for RedState 

The Tides Center, a prominent leftist dark money outfit, has been supporting the wave of anti-Israel and antisemitic activism taking place across the country since the start of the war in Gaza. But even worse, you and I are helping to pay for these propaganda organizations, according to a recent Washington Examiner report.

The report details how the Tides Center is receiving funding from taxpayers, while it pumps resources into the creation of pro-Hamas propaganda.

An influential liberal dark money group propping up anti-Israel activism across the United States has pocketed massive amounts in taxpayer-backed grants and contracts in recent years, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of federal spending records.

The Tides Center, which funds organizations behind Hamas-sympathetic protests held after the terrorist faction's deadly Oct. 7 attack against Israel, has long helped shape the progressive agenda with the financial backing of billionaire philanthropists such as Bill Gates and George Soros. But the Democratic-allied charity sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in assets also retains another key supporter in the federal government, which directly or through subawards steered more than $81.2 million to the Tides Center between 2006 and 2023, documents show.

The U.S. government's extensive support for the Tides Center is a window into how taxpayer dollars regularly flow to charities closely affiliated with the anti-Israel movement. The Tides Center has faced scrutiny from conservatives for facilitating a dark money pass-through system allowing wealthy Democrats to pour donations into initiatives housed under the nonprofit group, whose projects do not have to file their own tax forms with the IRS. This process, known as fiscal sponsorship, has the effect of obscuring sources for donations to and from the California-based charity.

The report also describes precisely how the federal government funds the Tides Center through subcontracts.

Nearly half of the $81.2 million that flowed to the Tides Center was routed through a subcontract or subgrant, meaning the charity received the cash after the federal government first made a prime award to another entity, such as the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, City and County of San Francisco, and universities, the Washington Examiner found. During President Joe Biden's time in office alone, the Tides Center has been awarded roughly $38.3 million in taxpayer money, either directly or through subawards, records show.

Yes, you read that correctly. We have paid this organization almost $40 million to shill for a Palestinian terrorist group that recently murdered 1,200 Israeli civilians.

Billionaire financier George Soros has used the organization to funnel millions of dollars to various pro-Hamas groups, which have been demonstrating in the streets and on university campuses.

Far-left billionaire kingmaker George Soros has funneled more than $15 million since 2016 to groups behind this month’s pro-Palestine protests, where demonstrators openly cheered Hamas militants’ craven terrorist attacks on Israel.

A Post examination of Open Society Foundations records shows Soros’ grant-making network gave $13.7 million of the money through Tides Center, a deep-pocketed lefty advocacy group that sponsors several nonprofits who’ve justified Hamas’ bloody attacks while claiming Palestinians obsessed with the eradication of the Jewish state are the real victims.

Tides’ beneficiaries include Illinois-based Adalah Justice Project, which on the day of the Oct. 7 massacre posted a photo on Instagram of a bulldozer tearing part of Israel’s border fence down and a caption: “Israeli colonizers believed they could indefinitely trap two million people in an open-air prison… no cage goes unchallenged.”

This development is problematic on multiple levels. Firstly, the federal government is using the money it takes from us to fund groups bent on supporting a terrorist organization. Sure, the Tides Center might actually use some of the money for civil society innovation and healthcare programs, but it is also funding a group that massacres Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

Moreover, the groups that receive the funding have been engaging in some rather raucous protests and have even used threats and violence to get their points across. The government is essentially funding an outfit intended to intimidate people into supporting their anti-Israel crusade.

The Washington Examiner and others have continued to investigate the Tides Center and other organizations receiving funding from the state to pursue questionable activities, so there could be even more shocking information ahead.