|
|
November 21, 2003/Cheshvan 26 5764, Vol. 56, No. 9
Ford to stop funding hate groups
EDWIN BLACK
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
In a stunning reversal, the Ford Foundation has admitted it erred in funding anti-Israeli Palestinian groups and has vowed to establish tough new guidelines to stop its funds from being used for anti-Semitic action anywhere in the world.
The group said it was "disgusted" by anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agitation action taken at the 2001 U.N. Conference Against Racism at Durban, South Africa, which the foundation helped finance.
"We now recognize that we did not have a clear picture of the activities, organizations and people involved," conceded Ford President Susan Berresford in a Nov. 17 letter to U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).
In addition to establishing new funding guidelines, the foundation's letter said the group promises to cease financing of pivotal anti-Israel groups and even recover funds where the grant's intent was violated.
Ford's wide-ranging an-nouncement was detailed in a five-page, single-spaced letter to Nadler. Nadler had circulated a petition signed by 20 members of Congress demanding that Ford halt its funding of anti-Israel hate groups.
Nadler's petition and Ford's letter came in the wake of a four-part JTA investigative series, "Funding Hate," which documented how Ford grantees were using the prestigious foundation's money to foment virulent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agitation in the Middle East and worldwide - and in some cases advocacy for armed revolution in Israel.
The series prompted immediate congressional calls for an investigation from Nadler, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
There were also indications from the IRS, State De-partment and Justice De-partment that officials would review Ford's funding.
In her letter to Nadler, Berresford wrote, "Recent media stories have raised questions about the conduct of certain Palestinian grantees who participated in the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban, and the adequacy of the Foundation's oversight of grantees. In response, Foundation officers and trustees have discussed these stories with concerned in-dividuals, making clear the numerous steps that the Foundation takes to ensure the proper use of its funds."
"Having reassessed our own information on the Durban Conference," the letter said, "and in continuing talks with others, we now recognize that we did not have a complete picture of the activities, organizations and people involved."
Nadler and representatives of Jewish groups with whom Ford officials had met after publication of the JTA series praised Ford's response. Ford Foundation officials could not be reached for comment.
But Berresford promised more than just apologies. She pledged to take sweeping new preventive and monitoring measures to address re-velations in the JTA in-vestigation that Ford grantees were openly refusing to sign U.S. government funding guidelines designed to ensure that charitable donations in the Middle East don't end up in terrorist hands.
Those guidelines are known as the USAID's Certification Regarding Terrorist Funding.
In a section of Berresford's letter titled, "Prevention of Funding for Terrorism," the Ford Foundation said it regularly checks approx-imately 4,000 active grantees against a State Department list to identify any that might be on the State Department's proscribed list.
"To date we have found no matches," the letter said.
But, the letter continued, new measures will help ensure that funds will not be passed through one organization to another, or that Ford grantees use other independent mon- ies to promote violence or terrorism.
She said that Ford's standard grant-agreement letter, which grantees worldwide must sign to receive Ford funds, "will now include explicit language requiring the organization to agree that it will not promote violence or terrorism. This prohibition applies to all of the organization's funds, not just those provided through a grant from the Ford Foundation."
The Berresford letter also contained a section titled, "Prevention of Funding for Bigotry and the Destruction of any State," which declared that organizations promoting the delegitimization or destruction of Israel would be ineligible for funding.
"We will never support groups that promote or condone bigotry or violence, or that challenge the very existence of legitimate, sovereign states like Israel," the letter said.
Meanwhile, in a special section specifically ad-dressing the Durban con-ference, the Berresford letter completely reversed the earlier position of its vice president, Alexander Wilde.
In statements and letters to the editor, Wilde had insisted, "We do not believe" that the events at Durban "can be described as 'agitation.' "
In her letter, Berresford said, "Ford trustees, officers and staff were disgusted by the vicious anti-Semitic activity seen at Durban, and we were disappointed that it undermined the vital issues on the meeting's agenda."
"The Foundation has re-viewed its own information to establish whether Ford grantees took part in unacceptable, ugly and pro-vocative behavior," she added.
Promising action, Berres-ford's letter said, "If the Foundation finds allegations of bigotry and incitement of hatred by particular grantees to be true, in conformance with normal Foundation policy, we will cease funding."
In that vein, Berresford's letter announced that the Foundation "has decided to cease funding LAW, a grantee that has been the subject of criticism."
The group was a principal player in the anti-Israel agitation in Durban. An audit concluded it misappropriated millions in philanthropic funds.
Berresford's letter ended by acknowledging the "new Anti-Semitism" - which has been the subject of numerous magazines articles and a newly released book by Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called "Never Again."
The Berresford letter said the "process will also help deepen the Foundation's knowledge of the 'new anti-Semitism' around the world and yield lessons about measures that we and others can take to avoid repetition of the negative dynamics of Durban."
Berresford added, "Ford shares the concern of many about the alarming rise of anti-Semitism around the world and is committed to addressing this disturbing trend."
Edwin Black is the author of JTA's "Funding Hate" series.
|
