Activities

• In 2017, the Oakland Institute launched a project titled “Palestine: For Land and Life” that “offers a glimpse of everyday life for the people in Palestine and the monumental issues that stand in the way of peace and justice in the region.” As part of the project, the Oakland Institute published a series of reports accusing Israel of apartheid, colonialism, and land grabs.
  • In August 2017, the Oakland Institute published an interview with Bassem Tamimi. Tamimi was convicted in 2012 of encouraging Palestinian youths to throw stones at Israeli soldiers. In a Facebook post, Bassem Tamimi argued that Israelis kidnap Palestinian children to steal their organs (blood libel).
  • In August 2017, the Oakland Institute published a report titled “Legalizing Dispossession: How Israeli Laws Enable the Take Over of Palestinian Land” discussing Israel’s alleged “expropriation of Palestinian land,” as well as claiming that “Israel has established an apartheid regime over the Palestinian people.”
  • In May 2017, the Oakland Institute published a report accusing Israel of “drying out Palestine” and “divert[ing] water from the Jordan River and the West Bank’s own Mountain Aquifer to Israel and its settlements.” Israel’s use of water is entirely consistent with international law and practice, and is dictated by the 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo II) mutually agreed to between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. (For more information, see NGO Monitor’s 2015 report: Myths vs. Facts: NGOs and the Destructive Water Campaign Against Israel.)
    • This report echoes the language used in the BDS campaign against Ben & Jerry’s (see below), falsely accusing Israel of stealing Palestinian water.
• In 2006, Executive Director Anuradha Mittal wrote a policy brief for the Oakland Institute regarding how the U.S. has “threatened to sever humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine for exercising their right to vote,” arguing that this would “bankrupt[]” Hamas.
• In 2006, the Oakland Institute published an article calling for support of Hezbollah, writing that “You do not have to agree with all of Hezbollah’s ideas to support their resistance to Israel. Condemning ‘both sides’ in the Middle East is just like condemning ‘both sides’ in the American Civil War. During the Civil War, with all its complications, one side fought for slavery and the other fought for emancipation. Today in the Middle East, one side fights to rob and pillage, the other seeks self-determination and dignity.”

Anuradha Mittal

• Mittal, founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, is also the board chair of Ben & Jerry’s.
  • In July 2021, the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company announced plans to stop selling its products in the “occupied Palestinian territories” and its intention to end its licensing agreement with their Israeli franchisee in December 2022. However, Ben & Jerry’s board chair Anuradha Mittal claimed the board had wanted to “release a different statement… that made no reference to continued sales in Israel.”
• Mittal has tweeted her support for BDS, including support for boycotting Pillsbury.
• In July 2021, Mittal retweeted an accusation that “extremist Jewish settlers” are “preparing…a new assault” on the Temple Mount, referring to them as the “biggest enemies to peace & freedom.” In reality, Jews were peacefully visiting the Temple Mount for religious purposes.
• In June 2021, Mittal signed a petition to US Secretary of State Blinken“demanding that he halt weapons sales to Israel.”
• Mittal has also retweeted support for the release of Khalida Jarrar, a senior official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP) terrorist organization, who was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison following “her own confession, of the offense of holding office in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from 2016 until her arrest in 2019.”