Grassroots International (Boston)

Profile

Country/TerritoryUnited States
Websitewww.grassrootsonline.org/
Founded1983
In their own words"Boston-based 501(c)(3) human rights and development organization that channels funds to small community groups around the world that are working for peace and social justice."

Funding

  • In 2019, total income was $6.7 million; total expenses were $5.3 million.
  • According to its website, “Grassroots International does not seek or receive US government funding in order to remain an independent and outspoken advocate for the human rights to land, water and food.”
  • International Institutional Supporters” include CodePink, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the Tides Foundation, Libra Foundation, and Vanguard Charitable.
  • In 2018-2022, Grassroots International received $75,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
  • In 2019, Grassroots International received $154,000 from the Tides Foundation.

Activities

  • Since its founding in 1983, Grassroots International has disbursed more than $48 million to its partner organizations.
  • Grassroots International engages in advocacy and “seek[s] to influence US citizens and policy negotiators who have the power to create policies that uphold rather than undermine basic human rights.”
  • While Grassroots International states that it “stands with the nonviolent Palestinian struggle for self-determination and human rights, particularly the human rights to land, water and food sovereignty,” it provides funding to a number of NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization designated as such by the USEUCanada, and Israel. (See below for more information regarding these and other Grassroots International grantees.)

Political Advocacy

  • In October 2021, Grassroots International condemned the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to Grassroots International, “This is an egregious attack on these particular groups and on the broader community of civil society organizations working for human rights, democracy, and dignity in the occupied Palestinian territories and beyond. Let’s remember that among these organizations are groups that are working to hold the government of Israel accountable for war crimes at the International Criminal Court, those calling for an end to torture of Palestinian children, and those working to protect Palestinian land and water that the Israeli government has clear goals of annexing in Area C.”
  • In July 2021, Grassroots International endorsed US Congresswoman McCollum’s proposed legislation meant to advance BDS and demonization of Israeli companies and defense forces.The entirety of the proposed bill is premised on factually inaccurate claims from anti-Israel advocacy NGOs.
  • In May 2021, Grassroots International posted on its website an article written by Jamal Juma, General Coordinator of its partner NGO Stop the Wall, titled “Guarding the Cracks in Their Apartheid Walls.” According to the article, “we need for the international community to recognize Israel’s regime as the system of apartheid, settler-colonialism and occupation that it is. Israel must be held accountable for its crimes for the crimes to end.”
  • In April 2021, Grassroots International welcomed the decision of the International Criminal Court to launch a formal investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the “State of Palestine.” According to Grassroots International, “This is a long-awaited and a critically important step towards ensuring the rule of law and ending impunity, while ensuring accountability for Israel’s crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.”
  • In June 2020, in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests, Grassroots International posted on its website a letter from Stop the Wall stating that “The suppressive measures the police have been using against the peaceful protesters in the US are no different from those used by the Israeli occupation…. The face of George Floyd is now painted alongside our own martyrs in a powerful mural on the apartheid Wall. We all are together in the same struggle….As both the US and Israel are founded on the same principles of white supremacy, otherness and racism, your struggle for justice and equality cannot be separated from ours-your and our struggle can only thrive on internationalism.”
  • In March 2019, Grassroots International mourned Sajed Mizher, a “first aid volunteer” for Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) who was killed by the Israeli security forces “during confrontations…in the southern West Bank district of Bethlehem.” The report neglected to mention that Mizher was a “comrade“ of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP), a terrorist organization designated as such by the U.S.EUCanada, and Israel). Mizher’s funeral procession featured many individuals wearing military gear, PFLP paraphernalia, and PFLP banners. Mizher’s body was also adorned in PFLP paraphernalia.  (For more details, see NGO Monitor’s blog “Palestinian NGO Medic Killed in Bethlehem Clashes Had Ties to PFLP Terror Group.”)
  • In November 2018, Grassroots International co-sponsored a conference titled “Balfour’s Legacy: Confronting the Consequences” discussing “the consequences of this British commitment, and how we in the US can push for a just resolution of a century-old conflict with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.”
  • In May 2018, during the violence on the Gaza border, Grassroots International launched a petition stating that it “cannot sit on the sidelines while such flagrant in justice and violence is being perpetrated by the Israeli military and is being supported by the US government” and called for the US government to “End all support for Israel, including cooperation and trade with the Israeli military and security sector, and the current $38 billion defense aid package from the US to Israel.” The petition ignored the violent nature of the protests, which have consisted of an organized armed attack on the Israeli border and IDF positions, attempts to destroy and breach the border fence, and sustained arson, rocket, and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.
  • In May 2018, on the occasion of “70 Years of Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine,” Grassroots International organized a photo exhibit and a “solemn procession showcasing the nature of Israel’s ongoing crimes.”
  • In November 2017, Grassroots International was a signatory on a call to support “A World Without Walls,” drawing comparisons between “Israel’s apartheid wall on Palestinian land to the US wall of Shame on indigenous land at the border with Mexico.”
  • In July 2017, “10 years since Israel (and Egypt) have essentially placed Gaza in a stranglehold, imposing a blockade that has left two million residents without sufficient food, jobs, drinking water and sanitation to live,” Grassroots International questioned, “what will the international community do in response to the relentless human rights violations and now unlivable situation in Gaza?”
    • The statement made no mention of the necessity of the blockade and its role in stopping Hamas’ smuggling of weapons and rockets used to target Israeli citizens.
  • In June 2017, to “mark[] a half of a century since some of the darkest pages were written into Palestinian history,” Grassroots International accused Israel of “continually demolish[ing] homes and increasingly block[ing] access to holy sites” as well as stating that “the near-total blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt has generated a full-blown humanitarian and environmental crisis.”
  • In March 2017, to commemorate Palestinian Land Day, Grassroots International accused Israel of “robb[ing] Palestinians of both their sovereignty and much of their territory,” as well as attempting to “Judaise” the Galilee.
  • In January 2017, Grassroots International published an article on “Economic challenges in Palestine,” stating that “The Zionist settler project continues in all of its crushing minutiae… the Zionists who have enshrined Jewish history, trauma, and aspirations above everyone else in the region.”
  • Grassroots International published a fact sheet accusing Israel of “water theft” and that “control of water in the region relies on a system of profound inequality based on a 60-year grab of Palestinian water resources.”

BDS Activities

  • Supports BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel.
  • In July 2020, Grassroots International “denounce[d] the West Bank Annexation” and called to “demand the U.S. government stop funding Israel’s military forces — those who will carry out the annexation.”
  • In December 2019, Grassroots International was a “Solidarity Endorser” on a project run by Adalah Justice Project and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights titled “Justice for All” that “aims to end U.S. military funding to Israel and uphold progressive policies rooted in historical justice.”
  • Grassroots International is running a campaign, with accompanying fact sheets, to “Tell TIAA-CREF to stop investing in the Separation Wall,” and Elbit Systems Ltd., as Elbit “Directly profit[s] from or contribute[s] to the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
  • Grassroots International published a fact sheet on Caterpillar, stating that it “profit[s] from the destruction of Palestinian land, homes, and olive trees.”
  • In May 2016, Grassroots International published an article titled “Divestment an Appropriate Response to Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians” supporting “boycott and divestment as powerful tool to bring occupation to an end” as “Israeli settlements [have been] built on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law and official U.S. policy have grown relentlessly, leaving Palestinians with fragmented pockets of land divided by settlements, walls, Israeli-only bypass roads and military zones.”
    • In February 2016, Grassroots International published an op-ed in Counterpunch (“Climate Justice and Palestine: The New Intersectionality”) that stated that “we should take heart that boycotting products made in the Israeli settlements, challenging the massive Israeli blue and green washing propaganda machine, and supporting activists replanting olive saplings on the ancient terraces where they have been uprooted, not only supports the struggle against Israeli occupation.”
  • In October 2015, Grassroots International called for an “end to United States’ military aid to Israel.” The call was accompanied by a petition to President Obama to “demand that money from US taxpayers not fund weapons for Israel.”

Members

Partners

  • Grassroots International is a member US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, aiding in “the effort to stop the US from increasing its military aid package to Israel to a staggering 45 billion dollars.”
    • Accuses Israel of maintaining a “matrix of control” over the Palestinian population and enacting “laws that discriminate against [Palestinians], much as Black Americans had been treated during the Jim Crow era.”
    • US Campaigns regularly lobbies the United States government to end military and financial aid to Israel, supporting “its brutal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.”
    • Maintains campaigns to boycott and divest from companies including HPG4S, and Airbnb.

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