The Question of Palestine: If Not Now, When?
An Open Letter to the Faith in Action Network
Empowerment is Developmental
The first “real” job I had after graduating from college was as a community organizer in San Francisco. The San Francisco Organizing Project (SFOP) hired and trained me to work in congregations across the historically black community of Bayview Hunter’s Point. By joining SFOP, I became a part of PICO California, a statewide network of affiliate organizations working towards unlocking the power of everyday people to change their communities. PICO California, in turn, was an affiliate of the eponymous national network that is now known as Faith In Action (FIA).
What drew me to PICO was its emphasis on living one’s faith in the public sphere. Being from a mixed-faith background, the inter-faith nature of the work resonated deeply. I was raised Pentecostal by my dear mother, and my late grandmother raised her Methodist. My father grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness but later converted to Islam in college.
At the time of my hire, SFOP was comprised of Catholic and Protestant churches and several synagogues. I was the only Muslim organizer in the organization’s history and made it my first order of business to bring in the first mosque member.
The executive director of SFOP at the time was a Jewish woman who had a background in union organizing. She had a gift for teaching and story-telling — two skills I would develop under her guidance. One of the congregations I was assigned to work with was a synagogue of which she was a member.
On the whole, I was treated respectfully by the members of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) in this synagogue. Part of its mission was to be an inclusive space, welcoming of all races, genders, and sexual orientations. A Jewish colleague, also a member, used to share her critiques of the racial politics of the synagogue, expressing that there wasn’t as much space-making for Jews of color as there could be.
Being a Muslim in a Jewish space wasn’t an issue for such a progressive group of lay leaders. I was able to make connections between the teachings of our respective faith traditions and found them receptive to attempts at highlighting this in our LOC meetings. One issue that I was advised to steer clear of by my director, however, was the state of Israel. Why? There were members of the community that were staunchly pro-Zionist.
During the opening faith reflection at a LOC meeting, one such leader described the liberation of Jews from the bondage of Egypt and their establishment as a nation as “the greatest event after the creation of the universe.”
Ask: “Who do you love?”
Since the bombardment of Gaza began over 8,000 civilians have been killed, roughly half of which have been children. Unlike mainstream media outlets, the carnage has been covered on social media in gruesome, intimate detail by Palestinian journalists, photographers, and civilians.
On Instagram, one can find an endless stream of stories about the death and mayhem rained down on innocents by the Israeli military. Infants are being issued death certificates before their birth certificates. Doctors are delivering babies from pregnant women’s lifeless, charred bodies. Children are writing their names on their legs and arms in order to be identified after their deaths. Meanwhile, rescue teams are recovering only limbs from the rubble. Men are being buried under collapsed buildings and fed water through tubes. Doctors are taking breaks to grieve their grandchildren’s deaths before returning to a continuous stream of victims facing the daily threat of hospital bombings.
The result? Entire lineages are being erased.
To date, there has been no public statement from either FIA or PICO California about this ongoing tragedy. No call for a ceasefire. No call for the Israelis to lift the siege. No condemnation of the bombing of schools, hospitals, churches, and mosques. No repudiation of President Biden’s unqualified financial and military support of these atrocities using American tax dollars. Nothing.
This is in spite of FIA’s professed recognition of “the global nature of our issues, the impact of U.S. power in these countries, and the mandate of our faith to be brothers and sisters to all.”
Do you not see the impact of US power on Gaza at this moment? Are Palestinians not your brothers and sisters too?
Go in Dumb, Come out Smart
Among the first lessons I learned as a community organizer is that “power is organized people and organized money” and “real power is often hidden.” Applying these lessons, I decided to conduct a power analysis of both FIA and PICO California to identify key actors, stakeholders, and forces that could be influencing the organizations’ conscious choice to keep silent on the question of Palestine.
Follow the Money
On FIA’s website, there is no list of funders. Instead, in the FAQs section it reads:
Where does Faith in Action get its funding?
Our funding comes from dues paid by our member organizations, support from individual donations and foundation grants. All donations to the local affiliates and the Faith in Action are tax-deductible. To learn more about contributing money to support Faith in Action, see our Donate page. Each local and state federation in our network is an independent 501(c)(3) organization and is responsible for raising its own budget. Federations in our network are funded by foundation grants, individual contributions, and dues paid by member institutions (primarily congregations).
I did some digging to find out information about the organization’s financials.
Since contributions, foundation grants, and gifts from philanthropic donors are not disaggregated on GuideStar, I had to do more research to get a clearer picture of FIA’s funding streams. One of FIA’s funders is the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the fifth largest foundation in the world. In its most recent 990 tax form, it reported to have given $1.5 million to FIA.
Right after the October 7th attacks, the foundation made the above post on its LinkedIn page. The link is to an article written by the liberal zionist organization Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), which states that “all people of conscience must stand in solidarity with Israel.” On October 27th, URJ released another statement calling for the release of hostages and a humanitarian pause. There was no mention of a ceasefire or lifting the siege, however. Neither were there any criticisms whatsoever of the Israeli government’s bombardment of Gaza.
California Endowment’s most recent 990 tax form showed it had given FIA $2.23 million. On its LinkedIn, a statement was released expressing hope for a “peaceful resolution soon and an immediate end to the violence and loss of life.” The statement included a screenshot of a social media post by Malala Yousafzai calling for “an immediate ceasefire.”
The Ford Foundation, another of its funders, reported that it gave FIA over $3.5 million. Despite the fact that one of FIA’s biggest funders has a track record of supporting efforts to hold Israel accountable for its human rights abuses, FIA has made no public statements similar to the foundation concerning the need to bring relief to Palestinians in Gaza.
It is conceivable that the pro-Zionist backlash to actions taken by the Ford Foundation and others has led to a fear of donor revolt against FIA should it also call for a ceasefire, an end to the siege, and humanitarian relief to Gazans.
The Nathan Cummings Foundation is historically one of FIA’s largest donors. Between 2012 and 2016, it gave $25.3 million to the organization (then known as PICO National). The foundation is among the many liberal Zionist organizations in the US that call for a multi-ethnic democracy in Israel within the context of a Jewish state. In other words, while such organizations may condemn the occupation, they equivocate when it comes to critiquing Israel’s Apartheid policies and holding it accountable for crimes against humanity. To be sure, the Nathan Cummings Foundation partners with the New Israel Fund, which the Ford Foundation defunded in 2011 due to its doubt that such investments were promoting democracy in the region.
Unlike FIA, PICO California’s funders are listed on its website. Below I’ve identified the amount of money given by each as well as their public position on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza specifically, and the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally.
It’s worth noting that all the foundations listed above fund social justice causes such as combatting systemic racism and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. Some have even waxed poetic in clarion calls about the dangers of being silent in the face of violent atrocities. And yet, almost none of them have issued any public statement about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza financed by American taxpayers.
Although Zionist funders have also largely kept quiet, their financial activities speak volumes. For instance, according to its 990 form, Mike Moritz’s Crankstart Foundation has an investment holding in his venture capitalist firm Sequoia Capital (SC) Israel. Among SC Israel’s investments is a cybersecurity firm called Beyond (Israel) founded by former software engineer and project manager in the Israeli Defense Forces, Assaf Rappaport. He also formerly held the position of head of Israel Research and Development at Microsoft Israel Ltd. Microsoft is a target of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement due to its investments in Israel’s military-industrial complex, including but not limited to the acquisition of cybersecurity companies, which are based on IDF technologies.
Conclusion
FIA, PICO California, and its affiliates receive money from many of the same funders either directly or via pass-through grants. Several donors have direct or indirect financial ties to the Zionist project. The fact that so few of the funders have issued statements may explain FIA and PICO California’s reticence.
Ultimately, what this web of financial connections reveals is that FIA and PICO California are only a few degrees of separation from the Zionist project in Israel. So while many of these funders may not support the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, FIA and PICOs entanglements with funding sources that have Zionist leanings could be a reason for their silence.
Power Defines the Rules
According to GuideStar, FIA’s board is comprised of thirteen individuals, none of whom have a particularly active social media or online presence. This makes it hard to ascertain whether they have public stances on the genocide of Gazans. Additionally, I could not find any explicit connections to Zionist organizations, foundations, or institutions. Nor could I find any evidence of public solidarity with Palestine.
The Board of Directors for PICO California is comprised of only four individuals, one of whom is the executive director, Joseph McKellar. Among them is also Rabbi Benjamin Ross from White Plains, NY. A member of the Reform Jewish community, he attended Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Jerusalem for his rabbinical training. A university strongly oriented to Zionism historically, anti-Zionist faculty in at least one of its four campuses have been ostracized, harassed, and even fired for their political beliefs.
A few days after the October 7th attack, an Israeli human rights organization called T’ruah published an open letter mourning the deaths of civilians in both Israel and Gaza. Rabbi Ross was one of many signatories. T’ruah’s stated mission is to “advance democracy and human rights for all people in the United States, Canada, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.”
In August of this year, Rabbi Ross was a signatory on another letter, this time to President Biden, concerning Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assault on Israeli democracy. As a means to apply pressure on the Israeli government, the letter called for the US to cease its “automatic prevention of all efforts to hold Israel accountable at the United Nations for its settlement activities and human rights violations against Palestinians.”
It’s puzzling, then, why no public statement, has been made by Rabbi Ross or Joseph McKellar, on behalf of PICO condemning the shameless US veto of the UN Security Council resolution that would have helped save Palestinians from Israel’s relentless bombing campaign.
Conclusion
My assessment is that the members of both boards have at least a tacit agreement to make no public statement to avoid potential donor revolt. It is also possible that among them is at least one Zionist board member who is urging silence on Palestine. Consider the fact that board members are chosen largely based on their fundraising prowess and their connections to different funding sources. The defection of a Pro-Zionist board member could result in a significant loss of money and funder relationships for the organization.
No Nice Way to Make Change
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
As part of the interview process to become an organizer, I had to have one-to-one meetings with fifteen different people ranging from lay leaders to clergy, to PICO California staff. One of these meetings was with a veteran SFOP leader from one of the Catholic Church members. We met at a cafe in the Excelsior district of San Francisco.
After ordering food and drinks we dispensed with the small talk and he began schooling me on the art of community organizing. He explained how organizers are polarizing figures who know how to raise tension. He explained how my job was to move people. Then he made a book recommendation — Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky.
I bought the book shortly afterward and it became part of my early education into the world of organizing. “Polarize the issue to 100 or nothing”, Alinsky said about the role of the organizer. Make it clear which side is right and which one is wrong.
Faith in Action, you are the largest, most powerful faith-based organization in the country. At the state level, PICO California has a presence in dozens of cities. At the national level, you have a presence in over half of all states in the country representing over a million families. The depth and breadth of your political reach have led to major campaign victories on issues ranging from gun violence to healthcare to affordable housing.
So much of what I know about what it means to win on issues is from you. You taught me that power is the ability to act but you’ve yet to act on Palestine. You taught me that organizing is about people but you have not shown up for the people of Gaza. You taught me that small is beautiful, yet you’ve not made the smallest gesture of solidarity with my co-religionists who are being mercilessly slaughtered by an oppressive regime.
You are at a crossroads, Faith in Action, and the direction you choose to go will have major ramifications for your credibility and legacy as an organization. Not just with me, but with the Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim communities across the country.
As Howard Zinn said, you can’t be neutral on a moving train. Do not remain in a grey area. People only move when the issue is black and white and we need people to move now — lives are literally at stake. Gazans need you to put your faith into action and turn out your base.
The question is, do you have the moral courage to lead in this politically contentious moment?
Sincerely,
A fellow organizer
