Some of that is both ironic and highly misleading given the context.
The New York Post provides the most useful excerpt of this argument in the headline of an article it published on Friday. “George Soros is paying student radicals who are fueling an explosion of Israel-hate protests across the country.” This claim that the students are being funded by Soros, a Holocaust survivor and the right-wing’s favorite boogeyman thanks to his large donations to left-wing organizations, has been picked up and resonated. elsewheretoo.
This in itself reflects the idea that student movements are necessarily insincere or the result of young people being deceived. Given the historical metaphor that wealthy Jews control the world, claims that Soros is the driving force behind political or social movements are also intertwined with or clearly anti-Semitic. has been identified as being of particular interest.
Here, this anti-Semitic framework is deployed to undermine protests on college campuses that have been repeatedly accused of being anti-Semitic.
More importantly, that’s simply not true. Or, more precisely, the connection between the protests and funding from Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) is so tenuous as to be patently contrived.
One might start by asking what Soros is theoretically paying for. After all, this is just kids pitching tents on a college campus. Are there any allegations that Soros is planting students at (for example) Columbia University and paying them $68,000 in tuition?
No, the New York Post article suggests another way in which this hyperbole clearly manifests itself.
“Cash from Soros and his followers was critical to the Colombian protests that sparked copycat demonstrations nationwide,” it says, later describing the situation in Colombia. “Students are clearly sleeping in tents ordered from Amazon and enjoying pizza and coffee delivered from Amazon.” Free sandwiches, organic tortilla chips and $10 rotisserie chicken valued at $12.50 from Dunkin’ and Pret a Manger. ”
The “tents from Amazon” is a nod to a theory circulating on right-wing social media that someone is buying all of these tents for students, otherwise they would be paying $20. It is said as if it is impossible to buy a tent yourself. . To be clear, there is no evidence that the other foods mentioned were purchased by billionaire donors, but the New York Post recently described them as uncannily “luxury.” I enjoy calling you.[w]See, what is the organization behind food delivery? ” Obviously, the average person couldn’t buy Dunkin Donuts.
But let’s get back to “cash from Soros and his followers.” The Post article gives no indication of how significant the alleged cash was, merely listing the groups that had some involvement in the protests and tracing the source of the funds back to OSF. .
Consider the group of the United States Campaign for Palestine Rights. The New York Post alleges that the company has a fellowship program that includes three people who attended the rally on college campuses. In one illustration, the three people are described as “people who are paid to participate in protest activities,” suggesting that their motivation for participating was money, not the opinions that led them to seek fellowship in the first place. There is.
“George Soros and his far-left followers are paying agitators to incite extremist anti-Israel protests that are exploding at universities across the country,” the story goes. Finally, we’ll show you how.
The United States Campaign for Palestine Rights is registered with the IRS as Education for Middle East Justice and Peace (EJP). And EJP receives a grant from OSF.
The highest award was $300,000 awarded in 2018. During that fiscal year, EJP earned just over $1 million in revenue. It cost about $1.3 million and ended up operating at a loss. His net worth in 2019 was approximately $165,000. This means that the majority of the OSF grant has already been spent.
EJP also received a two-year grant from OSF of $150,000 in 2021 and $250,000 in 2022. New York Post proposal (mirroring proposals announced earlier this week) According to the Wall Street Journal, the money went to “paying protesters.” But money is fungible. During that time, the organization said he also spent $2.4 million, at least $2 million of which was not his OSF funds.
If the campus fellows identified by the New York Post were paid the same as students currently eligible to apply for the positions, the total one-time cost to the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights would be about $10,000. Also, the companions identified in the article are not yet companions. In an email to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the organization confirmed that the person featured in the New York Post article was from last year’s class. In other words, they are no longer being “paid.”
The New York Post article also accuses Students for Justice in Palestine of being “funded by Soros” and fundamentally involved in the protests. (The fact that protests only spread across the country after police raided an encampment in Colombia undermines the idea that this is being driven from the top down, but so be it.) So, Soros’ money. where does it come from?
Now, according to the article, Students for Justice in Palestine is funded by the Westchester People’s Action Coalition Foundation (WESPAC). And WESPAC at one point received $132,000 from the Tides Foundation. And the Tides Foundation has received millions of dollars in funding from OSF over the years.
It is true that the Tides Foundation has received more than $11 million in OSF grants since 2017. It is also true that the Tides Foundation reported that he had revenue of $298 million in the 2017 fiscal year alone. Total reported grants from OSF are less than 0.3% of Tides’ revenues from 2017 to 2022.
In any case, Students for Justice in Palestine deny receiving any money from WESPAC, and there is no public indication that they have. In a statement to the Washington Post, a representative for the group said the foundation “does not fund or influence our organization’s political activities, but instead takes legal action to support our mission.” “It’s extending tax-exempt status to us.”
“We refuse to engage in unsubstantiated claims about our funding during a genocide funded, military supported, and politically supported by the United States,” the statement concluded.
The group Jewish Voices for Peace, which was featured in the New York Post article, has received both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) grants from OSF in recent years. The latter can be involved. In political advocacy. But again, the issue is scale. From 2017 to 2022, both organizations received $875,000 from OSF and spent $19.6 million during this period. OSF funding was less than 5% of total expenditures.
All of this is very vague when evaluating specific claims. Even if we take a step back, this suspicion is not all that convincing. Did Soros (or rather, the foundation he founded) fund an organization a few years ago to influence protests in response to the six-month war in Gaza? We would think so, even though the funds from OSF flowed directly into his $3,300 scholarships for these three campus fellows. None of them attended Columbia University, so is this all their fault? Is it somehow intentional?
Of course, what we should be thinking about is something much simpler. Soros is a nefarious man bent on using his wealth to reshape the world in his image, and that impulse is somehow the driving force behind the protests (or at least, It is clearly stated here that the company is the donut donor. It’s just a vague insinuation that plays on well-worn rhetoric and existing visceral reactions to Jewish billionaires.
There is a word that expresses such doubts.
This article has been updated with information from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
