NGOs, committee memo disputes House claims Biden admin directly funded judicial reform

Nonprofit organizations have pushed back against allegations from the US Congress Judiciary Committee, which claimed the Biden administration directly funded Israel's 2023 judicial reform protests. A recent memo disputes these assertions, stating that funding provided to organizations had no connection to the demonstrations.

The Judiciary Committee had previously argued that US government grants funneled through organizations like Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) and its affiliate Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) indirectly supported the protests. The committee's argument hinged on the principle of money fungibility, suggesting that government funding allowed these organizations to reallocate their own money to other causes, including the protests.

However, the new memo, based on an extensive review of documents, indicates that grants received by RPA and RBF were for projects unrelated to Israel. The specific amounts mentioned, such as $187,000 to PEF Israel Endowment Funds and $70,000 to the New Israel Fund, were apparently not sourced from government grants. The committee had also previously scrutinized the Movement for Quality Government in Israel for receiving federal grants.

This dispute highlights a significant disagreement over the flow and use of US funds in relation to Israeli domestic political movements. The committee maintains its stance on fungibility, while the NGOs assert a clear separation between government grants and protest funding.

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As the Committee has explained previously, the fungibility of money - the ability to easily replace one set of funds with another set of funds of equal value. When an NGO receives government funding for a project, the new funding stream allows the entity to use the money previously earmarked for that project on something else that it would have otherwise not been able to fund.