CCP-allied charity behind anti-Israel protests sees donations skyrocket by millions

EXCLUSIVE — A charity in Manhattan pushing pro-China talking points and organizing protests against Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack saw its revenue soar in 2022, financial disclosures reveal.

The People’s Forum, which has been linked to an international Chinese Communist Party propaganda network funded by wealthy American businessman Neville Roy Singham, a self-identified socialist reported to be living in Shanghai, is, as of late, helping to lead Hamas-sympathetic protests across the United States in favor of a Middle East ceasefire. That same nonprofit group raked in a staggering $4.4 million in 2022, up from just $486,900 in 2021, a roughly 803% increase year-over-year, according to the People’s Forum’s newly filed tax forms obtained by the Washington Examiner.

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The flood of cash to the People’s Forum underscores how far-left organizations boosting China and other overseas interests have gained significant footing in the U.S. in recent years. On Wednesday, the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing that, in part, focused on foreign money flowing through nonprofit groups. David Chung, general manager for the People’s Forum, did not respond by email to questions from the Washington Examiner about the source of the charity’s enormous 2022 revenue spike.

“Our country is increasingly polarized in many ways, but we possess near-universal agreement that foreigners and foreign money should not meddle in our politics,” Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative think tank, testified on Wednesday before the Ways and Means panel. “The overwhelming consensus in this area should make improvements possible.”

The People’s Forum has hailed China’s “new era led by Xi Jinping,” the CCP’s general secretary, and held events backing China’s “revolutionary struggle.” The nonprofit organization, which gained IRS tax-exempt status in 2017 and claims to be intent on “bringing socialist ideas to the new generations of organizers and activists,” is behind rallies “in solidarity” with Palestinians after the Oct. 7 attack, which saw Hamas and other terrorist factions murder more than 1,200 people in Israel.

In late October, the People’s Forum even reposted a video on social media of Leila Khaled, a convicted Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist, discussing “the unbreakable resistance of the Palestinian people to the Zionist project,” the Washington Examiner reported. The People’s Forum shared flyers on social media on Wednesday encouraging the public to attend a “March for the Martyrs” rally in New York City on Saturday to oppose “genocide in Palestine.”

(Jeff Chiu/AP)

The Saturday event is also being organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, an anti-Israel group that has hosted a scholarship named after assassinated PFLP terrorist Ghassan Kanafani, and National Students for Justice in Palestine, which has chapters on college campuses in the U.S. that have supported the PFLP, Hamas, and other terrorist factions for years, according to a 2017 report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

On its 2022 tax forms, the People’s Forum disclosed receiving roughly $4 million in contributions and grants, $331,000 in program service revenue, and $52,000 in investment income. The charity’s expenses were $3.8 million, and its assets reached $18.5 million, compared to the $13.6 million it had in assets at the start of the year.

The People’s Forum, like other charities, is not required to report its donors to the public upon sharing copies of its tax forms. The China-allied group also hosts “an accessible educational and cultural space” featuring conference rooms, a coffee shop, and a library in New York.

In 2022, the People’s Forum said on tax forms that it granted “office/studio space” to both BreakThrough News, an anti-Israel website, and Justice and Education Fund, which, like the People’s Forum and groups such as Code Pink and Dongsheng News, have been reported as part of the Singham-backed Chinese propaganda network. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) requested in August that Attorney General Merrick Garland investigate this network.

The People’s Forum calculated that the office and studio space lease contracts were valued at over $343,000 combined, tax forms show.

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Foreign policy experts and members of Congress have recently raised concerns about the People’s Forum having tax-exempt status, particularly as it boosts Hamas.

“I support immediately investigating the People’s Forum and organizations like it to determine what level of funding and coordination these pro-Hamas rallies have received from America’s adversaries,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) told the Washington Examiner.