The Network Behind the Pro-Hamas Disruptions

How did anti-Israel protests erupt within a month of the Hamas-led October 7 massacre?  How did university campuses in America turn into tent cities of keffiyeh-clad youth calling for the liberation of Palestine, the annihilation of Israel, and death to Jews?  If you suspect these protests are well orchestrated and funded, you are right.

Behind them is a coalition of radical leftist and Islamist groups drawing sustenance from the vast dark money network of Neville Roy Singham, and linked through him to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  This has been confirmed by a 34-page report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), an affiliate of Rutgers University.

Analyzing open-source data using proprietary software, the NCRI’s multidisciplinary teams identify emerging threats to civil society.  The NCRI report describes Singham as a “known conduit for CCP geopolitical influence.”  As early as 1974, when he was 20, Singham was the subject of an FBI investigation for links with groups inimical to U.S. interests.

He is now based in Shanghai and, with his wife Jodie Evans, uses corporate entities and philanthropic hedge funds to channel money for fomenting unrest in free societies.  His network “exploits regulatory loopholes in the U.S. nonprofit system” to fund a) media groups promoting anti-American narratives, and b) “seemingly grassroots activist movements,” such as those behind the pro-Hamas protests.  The report says the network is a “significant concern to the internal stability” of the U.S.

Its alarming assessment:

While nominally focused on Israel, the current protests can be better understood as a well-funded initiative driving a revolutionary, anti-government, and anti-capitalist agenda, with the leading organizations serving as versatile tools for foreign entities hostile to the U.S.

The unrest is likely to continue through summer and until the presidential election.

How is this disruption being achieved?  The funneling of funding is a devious game.  Soon after October 7, a new entity — Shut it Down 4 Palestine (SID4P) — joined the mélange of radical left, Islamist, and Marxist groups raging against Israel’s so-called “occupation,” capitalism, and the West.  Its website offers protest toolkits, graphics, etc.  But nowhere does it name staff, advisors, or a board of directors.  Instead, it lists seven organizations as “conveners” and about 100 “endorsers.”

The “conveners” are The People’s Forum (TPF); the ANSWER Coalition; the International People’s Assembly (IPA); the Palestinian Youth Movement; the National Students for Justice in Palestine; Al-Awda, New York; and the Palestinian American Community Center (PACC), New Jersey.  The first three are far-left groups with significant financial, personnel, and operational overlap.  The rest are pro-Palestinian activist groups, the last two having ties to U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

The “endorsers” include Samidoun, a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terror group; the National Lawyers Guild, run by the Communist Party USA; the Global Exchange, a socialist anti-war group that views the U.S. and Israel as oppressors denying the world social, economic, and environmental justice; the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an NGO that justifies terror against Israeli civilians and supports BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns; the Muslim Students Association, an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood; and the Workers World Party, a hardcore Marxist-Leninist sect.

The report reveals an intricate funding and support network of nonprofits, sponsors, and alternative news sources, all linked to the CCP via the network machinated by Singham to provoke social unrest, polarize young people, and destabilize American institutions.  

In particular, three SID4P conveners — TPF, the IPA, and the ANSWER Coalition — are closely tied to the Singham network via his Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.  The NCRI cites over $20 million received by TPF alone, from 2017–22, via the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund.  The most likely source — Singham; and TPF acknowledges its connection to him.  Consider the precedents and activities of these three entities:

• In 2021, TPF, comprising activist teachers, professors, and organizers, launched a book — China’s Great Road: Lessons for Marxist Theory and Socialist Practice — purporting to show how socialists in other countries could learn from China.

• Four days after October 7, TPF praised Palestinian “resistance,” and within a few weeks, SID4P was launched.  Since then, TPF and SID4P have organized a host of disruptive actions on campuses and in other places.

• It was after TPF’s meeting in Manhattan this April, in which activists were incited to recreate the BLM- and Antifa-instigated riots of 2020, that Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall was occupied and barricaded.  On clearing the building, police found riot weapons and discovered that many of the rioters were not students.

• The IPA, a “sort of umbrella organization for trade unions, political parties, and social movements,” is a close partner of Singham’s Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, which aims at promoting socialist revolution worldwide.  The IPA also partners the International Union of Left Publishers and CODEPINK (co-founded and run by Singham’s wife).

• The ANSWER Coalition, established three days after 9/11, is an anti-war group that depicts the U.S. as racist, imperialist, and guilty of crimes against humanity.  It projects Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate resistance organizations against Israel, which it describes as a “capitalist outpost for the West.”  It is teeming with Marxists and members of the Muslim Students Association and Al-Awda.  The latter seeks the annihilation of Israel and advances antisemitic rhetoric.

The Singham network also funds at least eight alternative news sources.  Among them is BreakThrough Media (BT Media), which promotes CCP and pro-Kremlin causes, vilifies Israel, and magnifies violent revolutionary protests in America.  NCRI’s analysis finds BT Media’s YouTube channel consistently portraying China in a positive light, while its pro-Hamas coverage post-Oct 7th increased followers by 46% on Twitter, 217% on Instagram, and 224% on YouTube.

The SID4P movement is indicative of a trend in which far-left entities — in this instance, in convenient collaboration with Islamist groups — undermine democracies by exploiting the rights and protections they guarantee.  The NCRI report gives a timeline of twelve demonstrations of “gradually escalating direct action,” beginning with those in Manhattan on November 9 to those around Columbia University in mid-April.

SID4P’s degree of success is stupefying.  It can be gauged by the fact that despite the invasion of Israel during a ceasefire by over a thousand Hamas terrorists, who massacred 1,200 men, women, and children and took hundreds of hostages, there were protestors in America who held up Hamas and Hezbollah flags, called for intifada, and graffitied public places with slogans of ‘Death to Israel,’ ‘F*ck Israel,’ and ‘Glory to our Martyrs.’

How did this brazen diminution of Israel’s right to defend itself against terror gain traction in America?  The NCRI says it is the result of hostile foreign powers influencing public opinion, and that their ultimate aim is undermining America.  It recommends greater transparency and accountability for non-profits and amorphous entities such as SID4P.

A step in the right direction is a wide-ranging probe launched by Congress into groups funding pro-Hamas unrest on campuses.  Representatives are petitioning federal authorities to release internal documents that could tie these protests to money laundering and terror financing.  The malign influence of groups like SID4P should be eliminated.  American democracy is at stake.

American Thinker

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