A fiscally-sponsored project of a major left-wing nonprofit organized an effort to blockade a port with the Seattle chapter of an organization allegedly tied to a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
The Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), a fiscally-sponsored project of the Tides Center, and Samidoun Seattle used their social media accounts to rally people in the Seattle area to block road access to the port of Tacoma, Washington. The groups intended to prevent workers from boarding a cargo ship they believed to be carrying weapons and equipment to Israel, though it is unclear if the vessel was actually carrying military aid, according to the Seattle Times.
Fiscal sponsorship is an arrangement where an established nonprofit processes tax-deductible donations and sometimes provides administrative services for another group, without that group having to register as a nonprofit with the IRS, according to the American Bar Association. The Tides Center fiscally sponsors numerous left-wing organizations engaged in various forms of advocacy, and is closely linked with the Tides Foundation, a major left-wing organization funding a host of liberal causes. (RELATED: Pro-Palestinian Protesters Arrested After Trying To ‘Shut Down The White House’)
Samidoun Seattle and AROC’s names both appeared on flyers promoting the protest, and the two groups collaborated to make joint Instagram posts promoting the blockade. The groups also used some of the same posts across their social media accounts to promote the protest.
Both groups were posting stories to their Instagram accounts documenting their protesting as the blockade was ongoing.
“AROC serves poor and working class Arabs and Muslims across the San Francisco Bay Area, while organizing to overturn racism, forced migration, and militarism,” according to the group’s website.
Samidoun, whose Seattle chapter helped organize the protest, has been accused by numerous watchdog and human rights organizations of being linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terror organization. Terrorists operating with the PFLP have engaged in suicide bombings, hijacked planes and launched rockets at civilians in Israel, according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Samidoun describes itself as a group that advocates for “human rights” by “working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom.” The group “work[s] to raise awareness and provide resources about Palestinian political prisoners, their conditions, their demands, and their work for freedom for themselves, their fellow prisoners, and their homeland.”
“Despite their lofty mission statement, Samidoun serve as an inseparable arm of the PFLP, a U.S.-designated terror group, with direct links to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and in the wake of the horrific October 7th Hamas massacre, have sickeningly celebrated their atrocities and continued to incite further violence and racial hatred against the Jewish community,” Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the Israel-based International Legal Forum, told the DCNF. The International Legal Forum describes itself as “a nonprofit, proactive legal hub, centralizing efforts of lawyers, organization[s] and activists worldwide, in their fight to promote justice, peace and equality in Israel and the Middle East.”
“Samidoun must be immediately designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, over their links and support of Palestinian terror groups, as well as connection to the Iranian regime,” Ostrovsky continued.
A report by NGO Monitor, an Israel-based watchdog organization, identified numerous ties between Samidoun and the PFLP.
For instance, Khaled Barakat, a coordinator for Samidoun, was himself identified as a “member in the central committee of the PFLP” by Fatah, a Palestinian political party, according to the report. The PFLP has called Barakat a “comrade” and “a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” multiple times, according to the report’s translation of the PFLP’s Arabic-language website.
Barakat was deported from Germany in 2020 and banned from reentering for four years, with his appeal being denied after German authorities found that he had “repeatedly participated in activities of the PFLP in Germany and/or appeared publicly under the PFLP label.”
Marc Greendofer, founder and president of the Zachor Legal Institute, told the DCNF that his organization has “documented that Samidoun operates in the U.S. and elsewhere as a fundraising and activist recruiting arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”
“The ties between the PFLP and Samidoun are demonstrated by their shared activity and cooperation,” a letter Zachor Legal sent to the Department of Justice in 2018 reads.
“Samidoun shares and promotes content directly from the PFLP’s official web platforms, which includes interviews and events with Khaled Barakat … the PFLP and Samidoun not only share the others’ content, but the two groups promote and attend each other’s events showing that the overlap between the two groups is likely not accidental,” the letter continued.
NGO Monitor’s report identified several other connections between Samidoun and the PFLP. For instance, an English-language Palestinian news website referred to Mohammed Khatib, Samidoun’s coordinator in Europe, as a “PFLP member.”
Mustapha Awad is a Samidoun activist that joined a PFLP-led delegation in 2016, according to NGO Monitor’s translation of the PFLP’s website.
Charlotte Kates, Samidoun’s international coordinator and wife of Barakat, spoke at an event in 2016 supporting convicted PFLP member Bilal Kayed where she “praised the role of Bilal’s comrades in the PFLP in the occupation’s prisons,” according to NGO Monitor’s translation of the PFLP’s website.
The PFLP issued a statement praising Samidoun in 2016, thanking the group for its efforts to free imprisoned members of the terror group, according to NGO Monitor’s report. Samidoun has campaigned extensively to free Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned secretary general of the PFLP.
Events held by Samidoun have also featured PFLP flags.
Germany recently banned Samidoun following reports that its members were celebrating Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel, Reuters reported. Several left-wing nonprofits as well as mainstream payment processors have cut ties with the Alliance for Global Justice, the group providing fiscal sponsorship for Samidoun. The Tides Foundation gave more than $3 million to the Alliance for Global Justice between 2019 and 2021.
“Action needs to be taken against third party NGOs, like the Alliance for Global Justice, which continue to serve as a platform for Samidoun to fundraise,” Ostrovsky told the DCNF.
The Tides Center has provided fiscal sponsorship services for several groups that have expressed support for Hamas and have been involved in pro-Palestinian protests across the country, the DCNF previously reported.
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Like other protests linked to the Tides Center, the one at the port of Tacoma featured anti-Israel rhetoric.
“There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” the protestors could be heard chanting, according to footage posted by AROC. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” they continued.
The American Jewish Committee characterized “from the river to the sea” as a call for the elimination of Israel. “Intifada” refers to “an armed uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
One social media post from Samidoun Seattle referred to the vessel they believed to be carrying aid to Israel as the “genocide boat.”
Protesters deployed via boat in an attempt to block the port, in addition to using their cars and bodies to block the road outside. Roughly 300 people showed up to the protest, the Seattle Times reported.
“The ship which was supposed to start at 8 a.m., no workers have been able to board the ship,” one protester with a megaphone said. Samidoun Seattle later claimed that the protests “successfully delayed” the cargo ship for over eight hours.
The cargo boat left the port of Tacoma on Monday evening, according to the Seattle Times.
Tides, Samidoun, Samidoun Seattle and AROC have not responded to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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