The U.S. government has granted tens of millions of dollars to foreign groups behind campaigns pressuring American defense contractors to boycott supplying Israel with arms and jet fuel, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of funding records.
Those records show the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department have issued the taxpayer-backed awards to the entities as far back as 2008 and as recently as this year. The recipients of the largesse, including the Netherlands-based Center for Research on Multinational Corporations, Norwegian People's Aid in Norway, and Ireland -based Catholic Church agency Trocaire, have long joined pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns against Israel and published reports recently calling on the United States to choke off key Israeli aid.
The vast funding to the non-governmental organizations underscores how federal dollars are often allocated to anti-Israel activist hubs overseas despite stated U.S. policy of being an ally of the sole democracy in the Middle East, including after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year. USAID declined to comment on the funding. A State Department spokesperson said the agency's grants through its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor to two of the BDS-linked groups were not "for any activities related to Israel or Gaza."
"The United States will continue to fully respect and safeguard freedom of speech, and to be a strong partner in opposing efforts to delegitimize Israel," the State Department spokesperson said.
But the fact that the U.S. would prop up the foreign nongovernmental organizations at all is of concern to several lawmakers who spoke with the Washington Examiner and are now looking into the funding. To Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who said the awards "absolutely cannot be tolerated," USAID and the State Department "are undermining our ally and our own national security." Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said taxpayers "should not be forced to line the pockets of radical, anti-Israel groups who do not have our nation’s interests at heart."
The bulk of the funding traced by the Washington Examiner through federal spending records went to Norwegian People's Aid, which has been awarded a staggering $300 million from the U.S. since 2008. The group formed in 1939 "as the labor movement's humanitarian solidarity organization" and works on issues related to humanitarian aid and international law, NPA says on its website. U.S. cash to NPA has been for various work in Cambodia, Iraq, Vietnam, and other countries, spending records show.
In June, NPA and more than a dozen NGOs published a 26-page report claiming Israel is deliberately murdering civilians in Gaza, making "it even more urgent for arms companies to stop their supplies to Israel and for financial institutions to stop financing companies that continue to supply arms to Israel." The report took aim at Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and other top defense contractors.
Anti-Israel activism, however, is no anomaly for NPA. In 2015, the group reportedly funded a photo exhibit in Lebanon depicting Israel being erased on a map and, in 2017, hosted an event featuring a top official from an Israeli-designated terrorist group linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist faction.
NPA has partnered with and funded at least three other PFLP-linked groups, according to NGO Monitor, an Israeli watchdog group investigating U.S. funding to the BDS-linked NGOs. One such entity is the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which the Washington Examiner first reported in 2023 was kicked off PayPal and Stripe, NGO Monitor said.
Meanwhile, NPA's operations haven't been without scrutiny from the U.S. government. In 2018, NPA settled a civil fraud case with the Justice Department in connection to a federal lawsuit accusing NPA of providing material support to terrorism over working on certain projects in Gaza and Iran, court records show. At the time, NPA agreed to pay a $2 million fine to the U.S.
In 2018, then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said NPA "obtained grant money from USAID by falsely representing that it had not provided, and would take reasonable steps to ensure that it did not knowingly provide, material support to prohibited parties under U.S. law."
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, NPA chief of staff Adrian Nottestad said his group has "condemned the lack of respect for civilian lives and of human rights that can be observed from both sides" of the Israel-Hamas conflict, adding, "We do not support the behavior or conduct of either party."
Another NGO that joined NPA in releasing the June report targeting U.S. companies over their contracts boosting Israel was Trocaire , an agency of the Irish Catholic Church that says on its website it works to relieve poverty and tackle injustice. Trocaire was awarded a $1.7 million USAID grant in July 2023 to "empower women and youth" in Africa, federal spending records show. It has also partnered with USAID for other taxpayer-backed projects in the past as well, according to USAID documents .
Trocaire also says on its website that the group "does not call for a boycott of Israel." However, a Washington Examiner review of its activities found the organization has extensively involved itself with BDS-allied campaigns.
Last year, Trocaire announced it " welcomes " a bill moving through the Irish legislature that would divest the Irish Strategic Investment Fund from "holdings in companies currently listed on a United Nations database of businesses operating within the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory." Trocaire is, as of December 2023, a participating member of an anti-Israel campaign called "Don't Buy into Occupation" that is also organized by NPA, the Israeli-designated terrorist group Al-Haq, and other pro-BDS groups.
In 2022, Trocaire launched a separate "anti-apartheid" campaign pressing "Ireland to take action on Israeli apartheid against Palestinians." Trocaire did not return a request for comment.
The U.S. has also long backed the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations, or SOMO, which is headquartered in Amsterdam. SOMO published a report in May called "Fueling the Flames in Gaza" that argued companies such as Valero may be liable for war crimes over their Israel-allied contracts, declaring that governments ought to block jet fuel and crude oil to the Jewish state.
"Ending the oil supply to Israel would be one of the most effective measures that could be taken in respect of the jet fuel supply chain," argued SOMO, which, in financial disclosures over the last decade, touted the hundreds of thousands of dollars it received in State Department grants.
SOMO said in its annual 2023 report that it was awarded a recent U.S. grant worth more than $1 million, while the State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy is also a backer of SOMO, including to the tune of $250,000 in 2021 to, among other activities, "hold consultations to assess developments related to multinational business and human rights, and organize capacity-building workshops on strategies to promote democratic accountability in cases of alleged abuses."
SOMO has partnered with PFLP-linked Al-Haq, and, in 2021, condemned Israel for designating Al-Haq as a terrorist group. Al-Haq Director Shawan Jabarin participates in PFLP events and was previously identified in multiple Arabic language media reports in 2011 as a representative of the PFLP. He has also served jail time for the recruitment and training of PFLP members.
SOMO, which rakes in funding from Democratic megadonor George Soros , signed a letter in October 2023 with Israeli-designated terrorist groups asking the International Criminal Court to investigate Israeli officials over alleged war crimes. Two months later, in December of last year, top SOMO staffer Lydia de Leeuw alleged in an X post that Israel was engaged in the war so it "can continue what it has been doing since 1948; ethnic cleansing for the purpose of a Jewish-only ethnostate."
"Can we add the United States to the #BDS list?" Leeuw also posted on X in December 2023. "#Gaza #CeasefireNOW #Genocide."
Just days after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack that killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel, Leeuw said the "ONLY relevant question" was "Can we, the international community, prevent #Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in #Gaza?"
To NGO Monitor President and founder Gerald Steinberg, the problem with the pro-BDS group funding is simple: it conflicts with the interests and goals of the U.S., he told the Washington Examiner.
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"It is alarming that taxpayer funding is being provided to foreign organizations seeking to harm U.S. companies," Steinberg, a politics professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, said.
SOMO did not return a request for comment.
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