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Ford funds were pivotal. "Ford has
made it possible for us to do much of
our work," a senior LAW official in
Jerusalem said. Since 1997, LAW has
been the recipient of three Ford grants,
totaling $1.1 million, to engage in
"advocacy" and participate at interna-
tional conferences, according to LAW
officials.
Reached in Ramallah, PNGO pro-
gram coordinator Renad Qubaj recalled
her coordination of activities in Durban.
"We published posters saying, 'End the
occupation,' things like that," Qubaj
said, "and we published a study, had a
press conference, organized our partners
and protest marches."
Asked about finances, she added,
"Unfortunately we are very dependent
on the international funds. Not just
PNGO but all the Palestinian NGOs
— 90 of them in our group. We get
very little money from the Arabs — just
needy family cases. Ford is our biggest
funder."
Allam Jarrar, a member of the PNGO
steering committee, said Ford money
allows PNGO to have a global scope.
"We do lots of international advocacy
conferences and regional forums," he
said, "and we always try to represent our
political view to Europe. We attended
some women's conferences [in Europe],
plus Durban."
"Our biggest donations come, of
course, from Ford. We have been in
partnership with Ford for a long time
— a real partnership, a real understand-
ing of our needs.
"Of course, when we go to an inter-
national conference, we try to get extra
funds from one of their special bu
ets," Jarrar said. "Or sometimes the con-
ferences' organizers, if they have their
own Ford Foundation funding, they
send us the finances to attend."
From 1999 to 2002, PNGO received
a series of Ford grants totaling $1.4 mil-
lion, plus a $270,000 supplement,
according to the foundation's IRS Form
990 filings, Web site databases and
annual reports. PNGO continues to
receive at least $350,000 annually from
Ford, according to the data.
LAW and PNGO were hardly the
only Ford-backed groups at Durban. In
a Ford Foundation Web site commen-
tary written prior to Durban, Bradford
Smith, the foundation's vice president
Pro- and anti-Israel demonstrators confront each other at the 2001 U.N. World Conference on Racism.
for peace_and social justice, wrote that
the conference's issues were "at the core
of the Ford Foundation's mission since
its inception."
More than a dozen activist organiza-
tions — from Brazil to Sri Lanka —
received well over $1 million in Ford
grants specifically earmarked for the
production of advertising materials,
public meetings and advocacy at the
Durban conference.
"Does all this mobilizing, networking
and drafting of statements have real
impact on people's lives?" Smith asked
in the statement. His answer: Yes,
"because for years to come they [Ford
grantees] and the foundation will work
together to implement the [Durban]
Conference Plan of Action."
Since the conference, LAW has con-
tinued its public crusade against Israel
and Zionism, and PNGO, as well as
many of its 90 members, continue
organizing efforts to try Israeli officials
as war criminals, boycott the Jewish
state and label Israel a racist, illegitimate
state that must be stripped of its Jewish
identity.
While a number of the Ford-financed
organizations at Durban engaged in
anti-Israel and anti-Zionist agitation,
many others did not. But Ford
Foundation money was a prime mover
in the production of the advocacy pam-
phlets, posters, workshops and other
materials at the conference that shaped
the overall atmosphere.
Stamp Of Approval
"I saw the Ford representative at
Durban," remembers Palkovitz, the
Hadassah delegate. "I told him I
thought it was a mistake because the
whole meeting was being hijacked. He
disagreed. He said he believed what the
conference was doing was correct."
The foundation carefully monitors all
programs and materials enabled by its
funds, maintains Alex Wilde, the foun-
dation's vice president for communica-
tions. Grantees also confirmed that the
foundation requires detailed submissions
of printed items and Web site develop-
ment plans, sometimes two or three
times per year. Foundation officials are
therefore aware of the fruits of their phi-
lanthropy.
Last February, the Washington-based
Advocacy Institute brought a group of
PNGO fellows to Washington in a Ford
Foundation-funded program "to
strengthen PNGO's advocacy capacity."
In 2000, it granted the institute
$180,000 "to strengthen the role of a
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