When Charities Betray America: Three Organizational Examples

When Charities Betray America:
How “Pro-Palestinian” Protest Groups Promote Anti-Americanism
(full report)

Executive Summary | Methodology
Examples of Anti-American and Anti-Police Hate Speech
Chronological Analysis | Analysis of Engagement Levels
Three Organizational Examples
Prevalence of Charities Among These Radical Groups
Conclusion | Endnotes
Appendix A: Organizations | Appendix B: Individuals

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Three Organizational Examples

We reviewed the rhetoric of three of the most active “pro-Palestinian” groups to identify changing degrees of anti-Americanism on the organizational level. The three groups we chose were Within Our Lifetime (WOL), Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), and Code Pink.

Within Our Lifetime (WOL). Within Our Lifetime, which is particularly incendiary and confrontational, uses “globalize the intifada” among other slogans when issuing calls for protests or aggressive actions like harassment and vandalism.

• Year of establishment: 2015
• Founder and leader: Nerdeen Kiswani
• Organizational status: Its fiscal sponsor is the WESPAC Foundation, a 501(c)(3) New York-based “charity” that funds a wide range of anti-Israel and pro-BDS initiatives.[xxvi]
• Background: Initially known as Students for Justice in Palestine New York City (under the organization National Students for Justice in Palestine), it rebranded in 2018 to the current name.[xxvii]

Within Our Lifetime aims to liberate Palestine by “any means necessary” and advocates for “values of resistance”—both armed and unarmed. WOL regularly expresses support for terror and has openly called for Israel’s destruction.[xxviii] It operates as a “charity,” thanks to its fiscal sponsorship by the 501(c)(3) WESPAC Foundation.[xxix]

WOL’s rhetoric radicalized following October 7, 2023, with a spike of +514 percent in posts that include at least one of the keywords analyzed in this report. WOL’s use of the phrase “globalize the intifada” rose 500 percent, and its use of “U.S. imperialism” spiked 1,033 percent.

Since October 7, 2023, WOL intensified its activity, holding rallies and protests in New York City on a regular basis. Many of its events feature flags and symbols of recognized terror organizations.[xxx]

WOL regularly promotes extreme anti-American rhetoric, denouncing “U.S. imperialism” and calling the United States a “genocidal empire.”[xxxi] It has also posted maps of Jewish institutions throughout New York City that it alleges are complicit in “colonization.”[xxxii] After an American flag was burned at a WOL protest, the group’s leader, Nerdeen Kiswani, shared a video of the incident on social media approvingly.[xxxiii]

In its written communications, WOL makes no effort to hide that it wants to see the demise of the United States just as much as it wishes to see the destruction of Israel. Its rhetoric regularly refers to the United States as “genocidal” and as an empire that must be “shut down.”[xxxiv] In January 2024, following her arrest in a protest, Kiswani declared on her Instagram account (which has since been deleted), “[w]e are in the belly of the beast and the beast lashes out the most before it’s taken down.” In November 2024, Kiswani spoke at a closed event in New York City. Unaware that she was being recorded, she said, “it’s more of a responsibility for those of us living in the belly of the beast…we know that Israel is just an imperial outpost for the United States itself to carry out its agenda all over the globe.”[xxxv]

Thus, when the Houthis, a U.S.-designated foreign terror organization in Yemen, joined the Israel-Hamas conflict by targeting Israeli and American and British shipping, WOL praised their actions on X, writing, “Yemen is proving to the world that they will never abandon Gaza … our enemies are the same: the Zionist entity and the US empire!”[xxxvi] The post also included Hamas’s inverted red triangle which it uses to indicate targets of its terrorism.

The day before the presidential elections, on November 4, 2024, WOL wrote on Telegram that both candidates in the race for “Genocider-in-chief” are representatives of the same “monstrous war machine” and that the “two major parties are two sides of the same coin of imperial death and destruction.”[xxxvii] In a separate message, WOL wrote: “Democratic and Republican presidential candidates alike are faces of the genocidal imperial US empire.”[xxxviii]

A common chant heard at WOL rallies is: “No cops, no KKK, no fascist USA!”[xxxix] In fact, over the past year, WOL activists have repeatedly clashed with the New York Police Department (NYPD), whom it referred to as “IOF-trained pigs.”[xl] (IOF stands for “Israel Occupation Forces,” a derogatory term referring to the Israel Defense Forces). Because of physical confrontations with NYPD officers, several arrests were made at WOL protests throughout 2024.

In early 2024, WOL released a report, “The Crackdown on Palestine: Unveiling NYPD’s Repression Tactics,” which examines the NYPD’s role in the numerous protests across New York City following October 7, 2023. The report portrays the NYPD as an extension of systemic state violence designed to stifle dissent. The report suggests that the NYPD’s actions are not isolated but are tied to the United States’ “imperialism.”

The report blames the NYPD for its “imperialist agenda” that “aims to suppress all peoples’ liberation struggles,” criticizes institutions for opposing “anyone standing in the way of US colonial and imperial expansion,” and sets a goal to “degrade the capabilities of the United States to wage war not just on Palestine but on oppressed people all over the globe.”[xli] In the months following the report’s publication, activists from WOL and other radical anti-Israel groups indeed carried out acts of vandalism and disruption at the target locations marked on the map. For example, on February 10, 2024, rioters took over the atrium at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). A month later, on March 15, 2024, at 1 a.m., pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the driveway of the New York Times printing facility in Queens.[xlii] In June 2024, Unity of Fields shared an “anonymous submission” of vandalism at Puma’s flagship store in New York City. A few months later, in November 2024, hundreds of anti-Israel rioters occupied the News Corp. building in Midtown where the New York Post headquarters is located and many waved Hezbollah flags.[xliii]

Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). Palestinian Youth Movement has made particular use of the term “belly of the beast” to boast of the importance of its struggle against the United States, Israel, and their allies on American soil.

• Year of establishment: 2007
• Founder: Loubna Qatami[xliv]
• Leader: Nadya Tannous[xlv]
• Organizational status: Not a legally independent entity. Its fiscal sponsor is the WESPAC Foundation,[xlvi] a 501(c)(3) New York-based “charity” that funds a wide range of anti-Israel and pro-BDS (boycott, divestment sanctions [against Israel]) initiatives.[xlvii]

Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is a self-described “transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians.”[xlviii] Although PYM is not a legally independent organization—it enjoys the benefit of “charity” status as a fiscally sponsored project of the WESPAC Foundation—it is one of North America’s most active and widespread anti-Israel groups, and it organizes rallies, lectures, and other events throughout the United States and Canada. Its activities are characterized by explicit or implicit support for violence and U.S.-designated terrorist groups, usually referred to as the “resistance” by PYM. PYM also supports the dismantling of Israel.

PYM’s rhetoric is fiercely anti-American. The group has a long history of justifying terror attacks, glorifying U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, and vilifying the United States by describing it using terms such as “imperialist empire” and “death machine.”[xlix]

Before October 7, 2023, PYM used stereotypical “anti-imperialist” phrases, like “US imperialism” and “Turtle Island,” but following the Hamas massacre, the rhetoric intensified with a 549 percent surge in the publication of posts with at least one of the keywords. The spike included keywords that express a fiercer criticism of the United States, such as “belly of the beast” (+5,050 percent) and “imperial core,” (+2,900 percent), both of which imply the need to wage a struggle against the so-called oppressive systems in America.

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks, PYM called them a “historic, unprecedented moment for the Palestinian people.”[l] It promoted rallies with posters featuring the image of a Hamas terrorist standing atop an Israel Defense Forces tank and the words “Victory is Ours.”[li] At a PYM rally just a day after the massacre, a speaker called the attacks a “glorious victory for the resistance.”[lii]

In October 2024, following the assassination of Hamas leader and October 7 mastermind, Yahya Sinwar, PYM issued a statement mourning him as a “martyr.”[liii] To mark the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks, PYM held rallies and events throughout the United States and Canada to mark “one year of resistance.”[liv]

PYM not only expresses support for terror organizations hostile to America, but it also rejects the very existence of the United States. In November 2022, PYM published a post condemning Thanksgiving, calling it “a day of mourning” and commemorating those who “have continued to struggle against the ongoing settler colonial projects of the United States and Canada.”[lv] In July 2024, before Independence Day, PYM published a propaganda poster calling the United States “the global engine of imperialism.”[lvi] On the Fourth of July 2024, during the “Flood July for Gaza” rally with WOL, PYM activists burned American flags and held signs reading “death to all kings” alongside pictures of Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.[lvii] In an Instagram post, PYM’s New York branch wrote, “[o]n a day built around the propaganda of one of the bloodiest empires in human history, we must continue to shift the focus to our brothers and sisters in Gaza.”[lviii]

In May 2024, PYM organized a conference in Detroit called, “The People’s Conference for Palestine.” The conference was endorsed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terror group, with one PFLP member addressing the event virtually.[lix] In an Instagram post promoting the conference, PYM wrote, “A mass movement, like the one we have built, is capable of knocking the U.S empire of [sic] its course and, by extension, of reshaping its relationship with Zionism.”[lx] On stage at the conference, activist Sana’ Daqqa, whose husband Walid Daqqa commanded a terror cell that abducted and killed an Israeli soldier in 1984, claimed that “within the belly of the beast this conference is an opportunity for us to consolidate and concretize what our resistance will look like”.[lxi]

PYM has also collaborated with Samidoun (Palestinian Prisoner Support Network), an organization recently designated as a terror organization by the United States and Canada for fundraising for the PFLP.[lxii] In 2021, following Israel’s designation of Samidoun as a terror organization, PYM called the designation “bogus” on its Instagram page.[lxiii] In 2022, PYM, Samidoun, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Within Our Lifetime organized a rally calling for the release of Ahmad Sa’adat, the Secretary-General of the U.S.-designated terror organization, the PFLP.[lxiv]

Code Pink. Code Pink frequently uses “state-sponsored terror” and “American terrorism” to demonize the United States and frame virtually every single adversary of the United States around the world as engaging in laudable resistance.

• Year of establishment: 2002
• Founders and leaders: Medea Benjamin and Jodi Evans
• Organizational status: Registered as a 501(c)(3) “charity,” it is largely funded by the Benjamin Fund, Medea Benjamin’s family’s wealth fund, and by entities tied to the Chinese Communist Party.[lxv]

Code Pink is a radical left-wing organization in the United States with links to the Chinese Communist Party that presents itself as a grassroots feminist, “peace and social justice movement.” The group’s agenda frequently aligns with radical ideologies that undermine the core principles of American foreign policy and national security.[lxvi] [lxvii] The organization was originally established as an independent 501(c)(3) “charity” in 2002 to protest the Iraq War, but in recent years its focus has shifted to demonizing the West and siding with its adversaries like Hamas, China, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Code Pink co-founder Jodi Evans is married to Neville Roy Singham, an American businessman with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, as the New York Times has reported.[lxviii] The group has expressed admiration for China’s governance, highlighting that nation’s achievements in reducing poverty while downplaying its human rights abuses, including in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.[lxix]

Code Pink has also called for closer relations between China and the United States, often framing American criticism of China as unwarranted and imperialistic.[lxx] Beyond China, the group has defended countries like Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, frequently portraying these regimes as victims of U.S. aggression rather than perpetrators of oppression in their own countries and globally.[lxxi]

Prior to October 7, 2023, Code Pink’s rhetoric was characterized by stereotypical anti-militarist concepts and expressions and harsh criticism of U.S. domestic and foreign policies, including calls to defund the police and dismantle what they call the “U.S. war machine.”[lxxii]

After the October 7, 2023 attacks, this narrative intensified, with such tropes as “belly of the beast” (+200 percent) and “US war machine” (+83 percent) recurring across Code Pink’s social media platforms. In 2024, Code Pink was a leading force in organizing protests, events, and disruptive actions across the United States, and especially in our nation’s capital, where the group tried to disrupt and shame politicians and diplomats. In the name of dismantling the “American empire” and its ally Israel, Code Pink activists engaged in countless acts of disruption and interference at political events, solidifying its image as an anti-American organization.

In August, during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Code Pink activists unfurled a “Free Palestine” banner on the convention floor and interrupted Tim Walz’s speech at the DNC Women’s Caucus by yelling that the United States is responsible for killing women and children in Gaza. The interruption led to police intervention, which is frequently warranted at Code Pink events.[lxxiii]

In March, three Code Pink activists were arrested for interrupting a Senate hearing on “global threats.”[lxxiv] In October, during a campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, Code Pink activists disrupted then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech, demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel.[lxxv]

Opposing the “U.S. war machine,” Code Pink has collaborated with other self-proclaimed pacifist organizations, such as the China-linked People’s Forum, to organize online events and spread anti-American rhetoric. The group has also attacked media outlets like the New York Times, accusing it of being “a mouthpiece for Israel and the U.S. war machine.”[lxxvi] Perhaps most provocatively, Code Pink violated the sanctity of Memorial Day and the memory of our brave, fallen service members by portraying them as “victims of warfare and imperialism.”[lxxvii]

On the Fourth of July 2024, Code Pink publicly declared:

We do not celebrate the Independence of settler colonial fascist United States. American ‘independence’ comes at the expense of people across the world who have been made victims of U.S. imperialism. Today, we demand independence for Palestine from colonial occupation and Israeli-US genocide. We demand independence from U.S. imperialism for Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Kenya, Haiti, Bolivia, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and millions more who face the oppression of the United States.[lxxviii]

The group’s hostility towards the foundational principles of the United States was even more explicitly articulated during a counter-summit to the NATO Summit which Code Pink held in Washington, DC, in July 2024. During the event, Code Pink’s East Coast Organizer openly stated, “Our resistance to U.S. imperialism makes us an enemy.”[lxxix] On multiple occasions, Code Pink has referred to the United States as the “belly of the beast,” emphasizing what they claim is a moral imperative for American organizations to sabotage the oppressive U.S. system from within.[lxxx]

As a self-proclaimed “anti-militarist” organization, Code Pink frequently expresses its anti-Americanism while criticizing U.S. foreign policy. When commenting on American defense efforts against attacks by terrorist groups that threatened Americans and American interests by enemies such as Hezbollah or the Houthis, Code Pink accused the United States of perpetrating “American terrorism.”[lxxxi] These examples highlight Code Pink’s consistent pattern of portraying the United States as a force of oppression and violence and not as a defender of democracy or a global leader of free nations.

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In the next installment, a closer look at the charitable status of many of the groups promoting anti-American radicalism.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/when-charities-betray-america-6/