WFB: The author of this Sunday’s New York Times magazine cover story about the campaign to boycott, divest, and sanction the state of Israel works for an organization whose major donor, Qatar, is also the largest state funder of the terrorist group Hamas. Other significant donors to the author’s organization, the International Crisis Group, are leading supporters of the anti-Semitic boycott movement the author describes in his piece.
The publication of the article, “How the Battle Over Israel and Anti-Semitism Is Fracturing American Politics,” represents another salvo in the New York Times‘ continuing promotion of anti-Israel writers and views.
The author, Nathan Thrall, is tied to a large network of BDS supporters that are funded into the millions by the Qatari government, which has long been engaged in efforts to spy on the American Jewish community and pro-Israel officials. Qatar’s foreign influence operations in Washington, D.C., have flown mostly under the radar, but are part of a larger proxy battle being waged by wealthy Middle Eastern governments eager to peddle influence in powerful D.C. circles.
Thrall, who the Times presents as a disinterested expert, serves as director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group, or ICG, a left-leaning advocacy organization that has receivedaround $4 million from the Qatari government in the just the last year. Qatar’s donations represent around 23 percent of ICG’s total budget. Qatar is not mentioned in Thrall’s 11,500-word piece.
ICG also has raised $1 million in the past several years from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, a prolific and open funder of the BDS movement in the United States.
Another significant portion of ICG’s funding—more than $5 million in the last three years—comes from the Open Society Foundations, run by liberal billionaire George Soros. Open Society funds dozens of Palestinian organizations that are prominent members of the BDS movement.
ICG’s president is former Obama administration official Robert Malley, another Israel critic who was fired from President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election team after he met with the Hamas terror organization. He joined the Obama administration in 2014. more here
Shills are all always self identifying!