US Senator Shelley Moore Capito told reporters Tuesday that after a staff member “followed the money” she discovered the Biden Administration has granted $50 million to an organization that includes among its missions “Free Palestine.”
Just when you thought things couldn't get worse
The Biden @EPA sent $50 million dollars to a far left activist group that glorifies Oct. 7. pic.twitter.com/MpPsK3Oij6
— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) May 21, 2024
The Climate Justice Alliance is a registered nonprofit organization authorized to accept tax-deductible donations under a 501(c)3 license from the Internal Revenue Service. According to Capito, more than $40 billion is being granted out via the Environmental Protection Agency under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.
In December 2023, the EPA granted $50 million of that money to an organization called “Climate Justice Alliance” which among its others missions champions the October 7 massacre of some 1,200 Israelis by Hamas terrorists. Capito displayed the image of what she found on the group’s website: an image of the bulldozer that broke through Israel’s border security fence on October 7. Above the image, in the colors of the Palestinian Authority flag, was the statement “Decolonize Palestine.”
The image has since been removed; nevertheless, “Free Palestine” enjoys a separate button on the website’s pulldown menu.
“The ‘Climate Justice Alliance’ denies Israel’s right to exist and actively supports genocide against Jewish people,” Capito warned.
The “Climate Justice Alliance” denies Israel’s right to exist and actively supports genocide against Jewish people.
It’s despicable that the Inflation Reduction Act is sending millions to a group that promotes hatred and violence under the guise of “fighting climate change.” pic.twitter.com/ztWLBkDaUQ
— Shelley Moore Capito (@SenCapito) May 21, 2024
A visit to the CJA website confirms the senator’s accusations.
WATCH: Climate Justice Comes from a Free Palestine
“The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine,” we are told in a statement above a video “that uses an anti-colonial framework to show how Climate Justice and the liberation of Palestine are connected.”
“Ecological warfare is a tool of colonialism,” the narrator intones. “In every colonized place there are ecological, political and human crises compounded by the climate crisis.
“And so it matters when you start the clock of history,” says the narrator, a bespectacled, grizzled man wearing a keffiyeh slung around his neck. “History doesn’t just determine how you tell the story of the problem. It determines how we imagine our solutions.
Path to Climate Justice Through a Free Palestine
“Climate change did not begin with the burning of fossil fuels,” the narrator informs us. “It began with settler colonialism, imperialism and extractivism.
“Similarly, with Palestine, if you start the clock of history it’s settler colonialism and the British Empire. A new set of liberatory solutions appear.
“The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine,” the narrator declares forcefully, “because both issues reflect the root causes of the crises we are all in.
“We must begin by healing our relationship with land and restoring indigenous sovereignty,” the narrator says.
But ‘restoring indigenous sovereignty’ is not a reference to the ancient historical ties of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel, renamed “Palestine” by Roman invaders who attempted — but failed — to dissolve those Jewish ties. It is code for the annihilation of the State of Israel and its Jews, akin to the mantra ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’
“Let’s learn from Palestinian resilience,” the narrator urges, his voice taking on a warm, soothing tone. “And all those loving hands caring for centuries-old olive groves. Honor the land-based traditions like food preservation and Arab hospitality, welcoming people into your home and sharing all you have, and dancing together to the rhythms of the free land and free people.
“It matters how we care for each other in times of crisis,” the narrator instructs. “This is alive in Palestine, here, here and here,” he says, with touchy-feely images backing up his claim. Here, and here,” he says.
“And it’s what we need to be doing everywhere. We call on all our communities fighting for climate justice to see this as our struggle, and to demand that we cut military funding to Israel and begin the process of demilitarization so that we can all be free.
“As we work to free Palestine, Palestine is freeing us,” the narrator intones. The video ends with an illustration of a pretty sunflower next to a sweet watermelon, on which is written: “Climate Justice. Decolonize. Demilitarize. Detoxify.”
Beneath the video, the organization writes: “Our hope in creating this new resource is to mobilize additional sectors of the climate movement for the fight to free Palestine, and to begin to shift the politics of the mainstream climate movement from carbon fundamentalism to climate justice.”
The organization has devoted an entire section of its website to the “Free Palestine” mission, one that includes posts from the X social media platform, such as one from the OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon group, proclaiming “Palestine Power Hour: Ceasefire now!” and another from GGJ describing a mob of protesters who “sat in” at the Hart US Senate Building demanding an end to US aid to Israel.
‘Now is the Time to Rise Up’
There is also a “Free Palestine Teach-In” video from November 8, explaining “how we must advocate for a Free Palestine” and declaring “Now is the time to rise up and join the fight to free Palestine.
“As a movement we are extending the call to all climate and environmental groups seeking to stand for justice. In the name of life, freedom and Mother Earth.”
Featured speakers on the video included Eyewitness Palestine director Nancy Mansour, Yasmeen El-Hasan – advocacy and community mobilization officer at the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and Jamal Juma, general coordinator of the “Stop the Wall” campaign.
Juma, born in Jerusalem and a graduate of Birzeit University, is also the coordinator of the Land Defense Coalition, described as a “network of Palestinian grassroots movements.” There is no list of those movements, however, and the group’s backers are very carefully masked despite its “Strategy 2026” report detailing the group’s alleged future plans.
LDC has repeatedly accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” against Arabs in Jerusalem and in the Jordan Valley.
But this pro-terror movement is not dedicated solely to the destruction of Israel, Capito warned.
Aiming at America After Israel
“If you dig deeper, they want to defund the police, defund the military — either them or their affiliates — [and] want to have very radical, drastic initiatives that I think are anti-American,” the senator said.
“And they’re certainly anti-Israel and antisemitic,” she added.
“The Biden Administration doesn’t seem to care; $50 million in December, who knows how much more in the future, and other like groups, because there are other associated groups with this group.
“There’s no inspector-general for EPA to follow the money, because they don’t care. Because all they care about is the mission — the climate mission — no matter what the radical ideas that are associated with the groups,” Capito said.
“Follow the money. We’re going to be doing that in the Environment and Public Works Committee,” she pledged.
