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NCRI Exposed: Israel Lobby-Linked Group Tied to Illegal Settlements and Campus Censorship
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Even as Israel pounds Gaza into rubble, carrying out what has been described as a genocide in the process, many of its supporters are attempting to change the subject, instead decrying a supposedly new wave of dangerous antisemitism across American universities.
Their evidence for this is a new report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI). Entitled“The Corruption of the American Mind,”the study alleges that Middle Eastern funding of U.S. universities has helped unleash a torrent of anti-Jewish hatred. Yet, as we shall see, not only does the report contain numerous methodological issues, butthe NCRI itself is deeply connected to the Israel lobby, as well as the U.S. national security state, and regularly publishes thinly sourced reports in service of Israeli interests and U.S. imperialism.
Campus Propaganda Wars
The NCRI report claims that American universities have accepted billions of dollars from authoritarian countries and that those institutions that accepted Middle Eastern cash saw 300% more antisemitic incidents than those that did not. U.S. universities, they conclude, are hotbeds of Jew-hatred. The report bemoans a:
[M]assive influx of foreign, concealed donations to American institutions of higher learning, much of it from authoritarian regimes with notable support from Middle Eastern sources, reflects or supports heightened levels of intolerance towards Jews, open inquiry and free expression.”
The study was widely cited in the media, particularly by pro-Israel partisans eager to change the subject from Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Bari Weiss, for example, wrote that “the explosion of antisemitic hate” on campuses had been “fueled by Middle Eastern money.” As she explained:
[F]or several decades a toxic worldview—morally relativist, anti-Israel, and anti-American—has been incubating in ‘area studies’ departments and social theory programs at elite universities. Whole narratives have been constructed to dehumanize Israelis and brand Israel as a ‘white, colonial project’ to be ‘resisted.’”
The clear implication in both the NCRI study and Weiss’ report is that domestic opposition to Israeli (or other Western nations’) actions cannot be organic. Instead, it must be funded by nefarious foreign actors – a notion that, as we shall see –is a central recurring theme in the NCRI’s work.
Shady Connections
The Network Contagion Research Institute describes itself as “the world’s foremost expert in identifying and forecasting the threat and spread of misinformation and disinformation across social media platforms.” Yet its connections to a wide range of controversial organizations raises questions about its neutrality. For one,the primary funder of its $1.7 million budget is the Israel on Campus Coalition, a group that describes its mission as to:
[U]nite the many pro-Israel organizations that operate on campuses across the United States by coordinating strategies, providing educational resources, sharing in-depth research, and increasing collaboration.”
“We envision the American college campus as a place where…the anti-Israel movement is marginalized, and where the entire campus community appreciates Israel’s contributions to the world,” the Israel on Campus Coalition writes on the “about us” section of its website.
If it were not apparent enough that this is a nakedly pro-Israel propaganda group fighting a war on America’s college campuses,the Israel on Campus Coalition is, in turn, bankrolled by the Jewish National Fund,a group that works hand-in-hand with the Israeli Defense Forces and builds illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.
The NCRI has also partnered with (i.e.,was financed by) the Charles Koch Foundation and the Open Society Foundation– groups that have been involved in funding regime change operations abroad.