‘Progressive’ bar association gives award to Palestinian terrorism-tied organization
December 17, 2023 05:00 AM
The oldest progressive bar association in the United States is honoring a charity in Arizona revealed through a Washington Examiner investigation to share ties to Palestinian terrorism.
Alliance for Global Justice, an anti-Israel nonprofit group, has come under legal and congressional scrutiny, and it has lost the ability to process credit card donations in 2023 due to its connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. These revelations, however, did not deter the National Lawyers Guild, a left-wing coalition of attorneys working “to the end that human rights and the rights of ecosystems shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests,” from recently presenting Alliance for Global Justice with its annual award named after the late socialist legal expert Debra Evenson.
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“AFGJ supports locally-based grassroots organizing by sharing political analysis, mobilizing for direct action, monitoring the centers of corporate and government power, expanding channels of communication, and sharing skills and infrastructure,” the National Lawyers Guild said on its website.
The award was also given to Costa Rica-based environmental lawyer Emily Yozell, and it underscores how self-identified progressive activist hubs remain deeply connected with entities supporting terrorism, particularly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack against Israel that killed more than 1,200 people in the Jewish state. Through an arrangement known as fiscal sponsorship, AFGJ provides services such as payroll, donation processing, and human resources for anti-Israel projects, including the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network — an Israeli-designated terrorist coalition. Samidoun has shared staffers with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Named after Debra Evenson, who was president of the National Lawyers Guild between 1988 and 1991 and represented the Cuban government, the “Venceremos” award celebrates “outstanding international legal work, legal solidarity, international advocacy, and justice beyond borders,” according to the National Lawyers Guild. Venceremos is Spanish for “we will overcome” and was the name of a Marxist Chicano group in the 1960s and 1970s in California that engaged in violence with the goal of overthrowing the U.S. government.
It has been a rough year for Alliance for Global Justice, which has been dropped by four payment processors, PayPal, Stripe, Deluxe, and Salsa Labs, due to the companies’ concerns about the charity’s ties to terrorism. Moreover, some of the most influential liberal grantmakers have pledged they will no longer donate to the nonprofit group in the future. Those include New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the League of Conservation Voters, among others.
Samidoun, the Israeli-designated terrorist coalition housed under AFGJ, has been organizing pro-Hamas protests after Oct. 7 and was recently slapped with a ban in Germany because its activists reportedly dished out candy to Berlin protesters to celebrate Palestinian terrorism.
Collectif Palestine Vaincra, a French group that partners with the PFLP, is also in Samidoun’s coalition. In January, the pro-Israel Zachor Legal Institute think tank accused AFGJ in an IRS complaint of providing “material support” to terrorism in violation of federal law over the Arizona group fundraising for Collectif Palestine Vaincra, the Washington Examiner reported.
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Over the years, AFGJ has received large checks from the George Soros-backed dark money philanthropy network, Tides Foundation, the Tides Center, Raikes Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and even Vijaya Gadde, an ex-Twitter executive who has come under fire for playing a role in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
The National Lawyers Guild did not return a request for comment.