Since at least Spring 2024, universities in the United States and Canada have suspended or banned various student organizations opposing the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, especially in Gaza. It’s worth reminding the reader that several international human rights organizations, including the United Nations have called the Israeli onslaught genocide. It’s also useful to point out that several of Israel’s rulers have been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Court of Justice.
One more important note would be that Israel would not be doing what it is doing without the “moral”, political, military and financial support of the United States. In addition to banning the aforementioned student organizations, many universities have refused to give students the degrees they earned and have kicked them out of school.
Furthermore, some university administrations have turned over the names of students attending the antiwar/anti-genocide protests to federal law enforcement. The federal governments, meanwhile have arrested, kidnapped and otherwise detained students for their public support of the Palestinian struggle against the occupation.
Meanwhile, over the same time period, a Zionist organization funded in large part by the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish National Fund continues to get approved by universities in its efforts to set up branches across the continent. Despite the major sources of its funding, the group, which goes by the obvious title Students Supporting Israel, advertises itself as a grassroots organization while receiving 501(c3) nonprofit status in the United States. At best, this is stretching the meaning of the word grassroots.
According to the Jewish News Service (JNS) and other sources, the WZO receives most of its funding (some sources citing 98%) from the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a subsidiary organization that is itself funded by income from its vast landholdings in the Occupied Territories and Israel. Additionally, the WZO’s “Settlement Division” – a division which handles the financing and so of the illegal “settlements” in the West Bank. The WZO also receives funding directly from the Israeli government.
In other words, the Students Supporting Israel are actually supported BY Israel. As a side note, another group funded by the WZO is the group Betar, an extremely right-wing Zionist organization founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Ze’ev Jabotinsky….and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist paramilitary group Irgun Zevai Leumi. It adopted some of its practices from other fascist organizations at the time while also adapting some of their politics.
Betar’s reach inside the Israeli government goes deep with many of its political figures coming from its membership, most notably prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir, Ehud Olmert and Menachem Begin.
Excerpted: ‘Supporting Genocide with a Non-Profit Status’. Courtesy: Counterpunch.org
