Posted 10/16/2003 12:26:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Remember the Durban Conference?

Forward reports on the money trail leading to those who supported the grossly anti-Semitic gathering in August 2001. It's no surprise that the often anti-Semitic Ford Foundation was a major sponsor.

The event featured posters displaying Nazi icons and Jewish caricatures, anti-Israel protest marches, organized jeering, incendiary leaflets and anti-Jewish cartoons, in addition to anti-American agitation. A resolution drafted by nongovernmental organizations at the conference labeled Israel a "racist apartheid state" guilty of "genocide and ethnic cleansing."

Israeli officials and Jewish groups were not surprised by the events — they had been warning for months that palestinian nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, and their allies, were bent on hijacking the conference.

What they did not suspect was the degree to which some key groups leading the charge against Israel at Durban were being funded by one of America's largest and arguably most prestigious philanthropic institutions: the Ford Foundation.

"We are struck by the scores of Palestinian NGOs funded by Ford," said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, "a number of which have deeply disturbing and troubling records on Israel and Jews."

The Ford Foundation — which was endowed with funds donated by Henry and Edsel Ford but no longer maintains any ties to the Ford Motor Company — has long been known as a funder of Palestinian causes. Less known is the extent of the foundation's involvement in funding of groups that engage in anti-Israel and antisemitic activities both inside and outside the Middle East. Read the rest...