Founded by the five sons of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the philanthropy known as RBF has some $842 million at its disposal. It funds a broad array of philanthropic activities, including several anti-Israel organizations; it also played both direct and indirect roles in advocating the nuclear deal with Iran. Armin Rosen reports:
Since 2013, at least $880,000 in RBF funding has . . . gone to groups working to advance a boycott of the world’s only Jewish state. Supporters of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel see the RBF funding as validation of their approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . . . RBF’s support for Jewish Voice for Peace and other pro-boycott groups, which is virtually unique among major American institutional funders, is either a sign that the movement is inching toward mainstream status on the American left—or evidence of a revealing drift within one of the most respected family foundations in America. . . .
It seems unlikely that RBF is funding pro-boycott groups from a place of ignorance, or because of lapses in oversight. Charities have a history of paying attention. . . . RBF is demonstrably [not] oblivious [of its support to BDS]. . . .The Fund hasn’t altered its practices, despite repeated public and private criticism, including a May 2016 op-ed in the New York Daily News. . . .
Starting in 2001, shortly after [the fund’s current president, Stephen] Heintz took over, RBF [also] began exploring how it could help repair the relationship between Iran and the United States. This was partly as a response to the September 11 attacks. . . . For the past sixteen years, the Fund has organized dialogues between prominent American and Iranian figures. These types of closed-door meetings, called “track-two diplomacy” in foreign- policy parlance, allow private citizens from different countries to discuss issues of mutual importance with a frankness and freedom that would be impossible for government officials. . . .
RBF’s efforts in this vein brought it into close contact with Javad Zarif, now Iran’s foreign minister and the chief negotiator of the nuclear deal; the foundation has also given generous donations to the National Iranian American Council and the Ploughshares Fund—two of the most prominent organizations that stumped for the Iran deal.
More about: Anti-Zionism, BDS, Iran nuclear program, Israel & Zionism, Philanthropy