ALGEMEINER
by Ben Cohen, JNS
May 26, 2014
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) is one of the more august grant-making institutions in the United States. Founded in 1940 by the sons of legendary oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller—America’s first billionaire, and a man whose political reputation was distinguished by his support for the Union during the Civil War as well as his commitment to educational opportunities for African Americans—the fund has always been a progressive enterprise, with a current emphasis on good governance, environmentalism, and the promotion of peace.
It is in that latter category, an area that the fund calls “peacebuilding,” that serious concerns have been raised regarding its funding commitments to NGOs working on the Arab-Israeli conflict. NGO Monitor—an Israel-based organization dedicated to analyzing the activities of civil society groups working in the Middle East, along with those groups’ funders—has just published a report which casts doubt on RBF’s goal to promote a “more just, sustainable, and peaceful world,” for the simple reason that many of the Middle Eastern beneficiaries of its largesse demonize the state of Israel in stridently anti-Zionist terms.
…..Moreover, as NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg pointed out to me when I met with him in Jerusalem this week, the road which RBF is currently traveling down was previously traversed by another major funder, the Ford Foundation, which rapidly changed direction when it realized that the promotion of peace and the promotion of delegitimization are polar opposites.
“In 2001, the U.N. organized a massive ‘anti-racism’ conference in Durban, South Africa, which was really the beginning of BDS and delegitimization,” Steinberg said. “You had 5,000 NGO representatives using terms like ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ against Israel. And it was funded primarily by the Ford Foundation.”
ArchitectGuy on Israel 