CODEPINK

Activities

• According to its website, “The CODEPINK alert is a feisty call for people to ‘wage peace.’”
• CODEPINK “doesn’t have members” or “require official affiliation.” Rather, it maintains: “Just using the word member implies that there is an established organization and accepted code of behavior to which you have to pledge in order to be included as one of the privileged few.”

Political Advocacy

• Regularly presents an entirely biased and distorted view of the conflict, completely omitting Hamas terror against Israeli civilians.
• States that CODEPINK “stands in solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli nonviolent activists and human rights advocates working to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and to promote the rights of Palestinians. In addition, we work here in the United States to educate Americans about the realities of Israel’s occupation and to change U.S. foreign policy in the region. We feel personally implicated in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law because our tax dollars – $3 billion annually in military aid- subsidize Israel’s occupation.”
• Co-sponsor of the “Kids have the right to read about Palestine” campaign, which calls on publishers of children’s books, such as Scholastic and Marshall Cavendish, to “add the title PALESTINE to their series.” The campaign was endorsed by prominent anti-Israel activists including Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein.
• In October 2021, CODEPINK condemned the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to CODEPINK, “The Israeli apartheid regime has a plan: it wants to repress all documentation and criticism of its human rights violations and evade accountability for its crimes.”
• In September 2021, CODEPINK launched a petition calling on PayPal to “stop facilitating ethnic cleansing” by funding Israeli organizations that supposedly “maintain and further Israel’s systems of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”
• In April 2021, CODEPINK 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 February 2021, CODEPINK sent a letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci writing “that if he truly values public health, he must speak out against Israeli medical apartheid!” CODEPINK also falsely claimed that Israel has “legal, moral, and humanitarian obligations” to “ensure that quality vaccines be provided to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and control,” while altogether ignoring that Palestinians residing in Jerusalem are part of the Israeli health care system; that under the Oslo Accords the PA is responsible for health care of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; and that the PA has adopted its own vaccine policy for its population.
• In 2019, CODEPINK launched a campaign to free Khalida Jarrar, stating that “It is shameful that our government turns a blind eye to Israel’s blatant targeting of activists and continues to fund its apartheid.”
  • Khalida Jarrar served as vice-chairperson of the PFLP-affiliated NGO Addameer, until 2017. Jarrar was arrested on October 31, 2019 on suspicions of “involvement in terror activity.” On December 18, 2019, it was revealed that Jarrar had “emerged as the head of the PFLP in the West Bank and responsible for all the organization’s activities” (emphasis added).
• In November 2019, following Palestinian Islamic Jihad launching hundreds of rockets at Israeli population centers, CODEPINK Middle East Campaign Director Enas AlSaffadi called on “the international community to hold Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accountable for war crimes and continuous breaches of international law. Israel cannot be a state above the law” (emphasis in original).
• On April 12, 2018, members of CODEPINK confronted U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley asking, “why are you blocking an investigation into the Israeli use of excessive force in Gaza…Israel deserves to be held accountable just like any other country.” The activists ignored the violent nature of the protests, which included Molotov cocktails, arson, and attempts to breach the border fence with Israel.
• On November 9, 2017, CODEPINK 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 May 2016, CODEPINK joined the campaign “No Way to Treat a Child,” a vehicle for exploiting children for political warfare against Israel. The campaign was initiated by PFLP-linked Defense for Children International- Palestine and BDS organizer American Friends Service Committee. A February 20, 2017 exposé in the Jerusalem Post revealed the central claims of this campaign to be false.
• In February 2016, the mayor of the German city of Bayreuth rejected the awarding of the city’s €10,000 tolerance prize to CODEPINK over allegations that the group is antisemitic. In response, co-founder Medea Benjamin wrote a letter to the mayor, attempting to justify her participation in a conference in Iran that hosted prominent Holocaust deniers, as well as the group’s support for BDS and demonizing allegations of “utter destruction and [] an indiscriminate massacre.”
• Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, participated in the New Horizon 2nd Annual International Conference of Independent Thinkers & Film Makers, held in Tehran, Iran (September 27 – October 1, 2014), speaking on the topics of “The Gaza War & BDS Movement Strategies against the Zionist Regime” and “Different Facets of the Resistance.” The conference included past and present Iranian government officials, as well as conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers.
• In 2014, Benjamin signed a petition titled “Jews Say: End the War on Gaza — No Aid to Apartheid Israel! BDS!” legitimizing Palestinian resistance stating, “Like any colonial regime, Israel uses resistance to such policies as an excuse to terrorize and collectively punish the indigenous population for its very existence. But scattered rockets, fired from Gaza into land stolen from Palestinians in the first place, are merely a response to this systemic injustice.”
  • Jewish Voice for Peace, Center for Constitutional Rights, Richard Falk, and Jeff Halper (ICAHD) also signed this petition.
• In 2011, a CODEPINK delegation participated in “Freedom Flotillas,” aimed at breaching Israel’s borders and the blockade on Gaza, and initiating confrontations with Israeli naval forces.
• Initiated a petition, “Women Say No War on Iran,” to be delivered to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and First Lady Michelle Obama, “to oppose the inflammatory rhetoric of war and the recently publicized plan of the Israeli government to attack Iran… On moral and economic grounds, we also oppose any US intervention to support an Israeli attack on Iran… We cry out for diplomacy, not bombing, to ensure security and peace.” The petition completely omitsthe Iranian regime’s persistent calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

BDS Activities

• Leader of U.S.-based anti-Israel boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS).
• CODEPINK is involved in a campaign targeting Airbnb to end what it calls “illegal rentals in the West Bank,” as well as against RE/MAX to “stop RE/MAX International Corporation from its current practice of selling properties within illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank.”
  • Along with Sabeel, American Friends Service Committee-Denver, and Jewish Voice for Peace, CODEPINK staged a protest outside of RE/MAX’s annual shareholder meeting in Denver, demanding that RE/MAX stop conducting business in Israeli settlements.
• COPEPINK, together with Interfaith Peace-builders and other highly biased and politicized groups, launched a campaign to “End US Military Aid to Israel,” urging followers to “stop funding weapons to Israel.”
• Promotes the Move Over AIPAC campaign, which seeks to “oppose to US military aid to Israel” and push for a “human rights agenda, which will require the intensification of direct action strategies being pushed by the growing BDS movement and professional lobbying efforts.”
  • Filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee in August 2011 “in response to a right-wing junket in which 81 Congress people visited Israel with an AIPAC affiliate.” Co-founder Medea Benjamin, who filed the complaint, alleged that “AIPAC puts the interests of Israel before U.S. interests, which makes these Congressional junkets dangerous and downright un-American.”
• In September 2021, CODEPINK “applaud[ed]” the United States House of Representative’s initial decision to remove $1 billion from a funding bill to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome. According to CODEPINK national co-director and Middle East analyst Ariel Gold, “Removing an additional $1 billion for Israel is an incredible success towards our goals of ending the blank check and impunity that Israel, an apartheid state, has enjoyed for far too long.”
• In July 2021, CODEPINK applauded Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company decision to end its licensing agreement with their Israeli franchisee in December 2022. According to CODEPINK, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream… that supports the Palestinian call to boycott Israel until Palestinians have equal rights.”
• In May 2021, CODEPINK launched a campaign calling on Congress to “Block Arms Sales to Israel!”
• In May 2020, as part of a broader BDS campaign, CODEPINK participated in a campaign against Puma due to its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association. According to CODEPINK, “Israel’s illegal settlements are part of its racist apartheid policies that leading South Africans, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have said are even worse than what they endured under that country’s apartheid regime.”
• In April 2019, CODEPINK launched a campaign titled “Don’t artwash Israeli crimes,” calling for Madonna to cancel her performance at Eurovision as “Israel’s regime of military occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is shamelessly using Eurovision as part of its official Brand Israel strategy, a propaganda campaign showing ‘Israel’s prettier face’ in order to whitewash and distract attention from its war crimes against Palestinians.”
• On June 19, 2018, co-founder of CODEPINK Medea Benjamin, Canadian BDS Coalition, Toronto BDS Action, and others called for the leader of the Social Democratic political party in Canada and other MPs to immediately “disassociate themselves” from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group, as “Israel has been as unjust towards Palestinians as the white-ruled apartheid state was to Black South Africans.”
• In April 2017, CODEPINK campaigned to have Israeli soccer clubs based in West Bank settlements expelled from FIFA.
• In November 2016, CODEPINK participated in the “Global Week of Action against HP!” for its “role in supplying technology for Israeli apartheid and occupation.”
• CODEPINK NYC signed a letter sent by Adalah-NY on March 5, 2015 calling on the Beacon Theatre in New York to “not co-sign the atrocities that the Israeli government is committing by hosting Israeli musician Idan Raichel.” Other signatories included Al-Awda New York, Students for Justice in Palestine, and WESPAC Foundation.
• In October 2014, Allie McCracken, then the co-director of CODEPINK, called for the US to stop funding Israel’s military stating, “Under President Obama, we’ve actually increased US military aid to Israel, up to $3.8 billion every year…we’re giving it to Israel, which is using it to buy weapons, mostly from American weapons manufacturers, to kill people in Gaza.”
• In 2014, launched a “Boycott Sodastream” campaign, alleging that “SodaStream enjoys cheap land and water, confiscated from the indigenous Palestinian owners; a captive Palestinian labor force; tax benefits; and lax regulation of environmental and labor protection laws.” The campaign called on supporters to “Send a letter telling Scarlet Johansson to drop SodaStream” and “Send letters to SodaStream retailers.” It also publicized a video, “BDS Brides Boycott SodaStream and Ahava Sales at Bed Bath & Beyond,” as well as downloadable “Slogans & Chants for Protesting SodaStream.” The campaign ignores that SodaStream employed hundreds of Palestinians who will lose their jobs when the company leaves the West Bank.
• In 2009, launched the campaign “Stolen Beauty,” aiming to boycott Ahava beauty products and “expose the ugly secrets from the Dead Sea.” The campaign alleges that “Ahava is putting a pretty face on its crimes” and “hiding the ugly truth– its products actually come from stolen Palestinian natural resources in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank… when you buy Ahava products you help finance the destruction of hope for a peaceful and just future for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Staff

• Co-founder Medea Benjamin is also president of the Benjamin Fund, which, according to its 2016 Form 990, has assets totaling approximately $26.3 million. In 2016, it also provided funds to other highly biased and politicized NGOs including, CODEPINK ($400,250), American Muslims for Palestine ($3,500), Amnesty International ($5,000), Christian Peacemakers ($5,000), Defense for Children International – Palestine ($5,000), US Campaign for Palestinian Rights ($5,000), Grassroots International ($10,000), Jewish Voice for Peace ($10,000), Middle East Children’s Alliance ($10,000), and the National Lawyers Guild ($20,000).