Congress is seeking to find out how the anti-Israel protests across the country’s college campuses are being funded. This “dark money arrangement has obscured funding sources and donations” which has spurred congressional interest.
Just The News reports the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a driving force in the anti-Israel protests sweeping across the country at college campuses. The national group says it supports 350 “Palestine solidarity organizations” throughout North America, primarily SJP chapters across America.
And while the “funding of the student chapters largely come from U.S. universities, however, National SJP is funded through intermediaries and it is not required to disclose its own finances.” Therefore, “this dark money arrangement has obscured funding sources and donations to the group and has spurred congressional interest.”
“I’m a member of the Ways and Means Committee, and earlier this year, we actually looked into the funding streams for Students for Justice in Palestine and some of these other groups that are now…look like they’re inciting violence, bringing out anti-semitic behavior, calling for, you know, support of Hamas, which is, you know, a terrorist organization, designated a terrorist organization by the United States,” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., told Just the News, No Noise TV show on Monday.
“So, you know, these are these are organizations that get dark money and they use our IRS structure, whether it’s a 501(c)(3) or (4) or other other parts of the IRS Code to get around taxes and then use this for political purposes. And we need to crack down on that,” she added.
Just The News adds that several SJP chapters have been criticized recently for downplaying the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel last October, calling it a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance.”
“[Across] land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near,” its statement read.
“As the Palestinian student movement, we have an unshakable responsibility to join the call for mass mobilization,” it promised.
The group has long been criticized for creating an environment hostile to Jews. A 2016 study from Brandeis University found “One of the strongest predictors of perceiving a hostile climate toward Israel and Jews is the presence of an active Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group on campus.”
