CODEPINK

Profile

Country/TerritoryUnited States
Websitehttp://www.codepink.org/
FoundedNovember 2002 by “Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Diane Wilson, Starhawk and about 100 other women,” who “set up a 4-month all-day vigil in front of the White House… to stand for peace” and “stop the United States from invading Iraq.”
In their own wordsA “women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.”

Funding

Activities

  • Active in promoting ideological positions in a number of conflict zones, including Israel-Palestinians.
  • CODEPINK’s activities include demonstrations, protest, and disruptions.
    • In November 2023, CODEPINK co-organized a “National March on Washington” to “demand an immediate end to the brutal siege of Gaza and the cessation of all U.S. aid to Israel.”
    • In October 2023, CODEPINK disrupted Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s testimony during a Senate hearing on aid to Israel. Twelve CODEPINK activists were arrested.
  • 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.”
  • In January 2024, CODEPINK was a signatory on a letter “urging international support for South Africa’s genocide case against the State of Israel.”
  • In October 2023, in response to an explosion outside the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, CODEPINK tweeted, “500+ patients, doctors, nurses, and refugees killed by an Israeli airstrike on a hospital. Israel is indefensible.” CODEPINK ignored the videos, images, and intelligence materials demonstrating that an Islamic Jihad rocket had “misfired” (i.e. detonated in Gaza instead of Israel) and hit the hospital parking lot.
  • In October 2023,  in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas massacre, CODEPINK launched a petition calling on President Biden and the US Secretary of Defense to “Stop Supporting Israeli Apartheid.” According to the petition, “Israel has colonized, occupied and oppressed the people of Palestine for 70 years. This has inevitably led to the resistance of Palestinians” (emphasis added).
  • In March 2023, CODEPINK activist Maya Garner interrupted a Foreign Relations Committee hearing, demanding that Secretary of State Blinken “stop funding the oppression of the Palestinian people and send Netanyahu to the ICC.”
  • In January 2023, CODEPINK partnered with Samidoun for a “week of action” calling for the release of Ahmad Sa’adat, the PFLP’s Secretary-General, sentenced to 30 years in prison for heading an “illegal terrorist organization,” and planning attacks including the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi.
  • In January 2023, CODEPINK called on the United States to “resist ties with Israel and stop normalization efforts…Strengthening ties with Israel empowers the country to continue its settler-colonial project, and causes Palestinians to be murdered by Israel and expelled from their homes.”
  • In August 2022, CODEPINK was a signatory on a letter to President Biden condemning the Israeli Ministry designation of six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the letter, “The targeted organizations form part of the bedrock of Palestinian civil society that has been protecting and advancing Palestinian human rights for decades across the full spectrum of issues of global concern.” The letter also called to “Suspend U.S. military funding to the Israeli government and cease any diplomatic efforts that enable systemic impunity for Israel’s gross violations of internationally-recognized human rights.”
  • In March 2022, CODEPINK compared Israel to Russia, stating that “US hypocrisy is allocating $14 billion to Ukraine to help Ukrainians *resist* Russian occupation while simultaneously allocating $3 billion to Israel to help *continue* its occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”
  • In January 2022, CODEPINK endorsed “Global Days of Action for Palestine” meant to “intensify protests against Israel’s dramatic escalation of violence and ethnic cleansing across Historic Palestine.”
  • In 2021 and 2023, 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 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.”
  • 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).
  • 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 citing 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 Benjaminparticipated 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.” 
  • 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” (emphasis added).
  • 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.

BDS Activities

  • Leader of U.S.-based anti-Israel boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS).
  • CODEPINK published a “BDS Toolkit,” calling to “Support Palestine by boycotting products that uplift the ongoing genocide in Palestine. It’s important to put our money where our mouth is.”
  • CODEPINK participated 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.”
  • 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.”
  • In April 2022, CODEPINK called on the Biden administration to “condition aid to Israel…The Biden administration’s failure to act for Palestinian rights sends a message to Israel that it can continue its apartheid policies with impunity.”
  • 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 former CODEPINK national co-director 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. 
  • 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.”

Partners

  • Partners with other highly biased and politicized NGOs including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which views itself as the “Jewish wing” of the Palestinian solidarity movement and seeks to create “a wedge” within the Jewish community over support for Israel. It is also a member of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
  • Member of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a “national coalition of hundreds of groups working to advocate for Palestinian rights and a shift in US policy.”
    • 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.”

All Articles about CODEPINK

Further Reading