RALEIGH — Arabella Advisors, a dark money charity pass-through group, recently cut ties with Alliance for Global Justice, a group that has been funding and organizing anti-Israel protests across the country.
According to a recent report by the Washington Examiner, Arabella Advisor’s New Venture Fund and Windward Fund “steered $473,000 between 2020 and 2021 to Alliance for Global Justice, according to tax forms.”
Arabella Advisors has a presence in North Carolina. The group opened an office in Durham in 2022 and a report issued by Arabella this past February showed heavy grant-making activity in North Carolina.
Global Justice Alliance has provided financial backing to the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which the Washington Examiner has reported is “an Israeli-designated terror group that has shared staffers with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”
Samidoun was designated by Israel as a terrorist organization in February 2021 and has been banned from operating in Germany as of Oct. 12, 2023.
Per the Samidoun website, the group is a “sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501(c)(3) Organization,” however Alliance for Global Justice has been cut off on various online platforms from accepting donations such as PayPal and the Democrat’s preferred fundraising site ActBlue and now refers individuals to “write paper checks” addressed to its Arizona office location.
Alliance for Global Justice reported over $56.4 million in total revenue and $54,150,882 in total expenses on Form 990 tax returns covering Apr. 1, 2020, through Mar. 31, 2021.
According to 2021 tax filings, Alliance for Global Justice, the organization gave $292,257 as a “racial justice grant” to Blueprint North Carolina, the leader of a coalition of progressive and left-leaning groups in the state. Blueprint North Carolina gained attention in 2013 after a memo to its members was leaked to the media that called for them to “cripple” and “eviscerate” Republican leaders.
Samidoun describes itself as an “international network of activists building solidarity with Palestinian prisoners,” and has been cited as a main group behind anti-Israel and pro-Palestine protests in recent weeks around the world following the terror attack on Israel by Hamas that took the lives of over 1,400 Israelis.
Samidoun-promoted protests have occurred across the United States and in North Carolina in cities like Raleigh. The Raleigh protests were circulated and promoted by an organization called “Migrant Roots Media” (MRM) on social media platforms including Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.
Accounts initially tagged by MRM on social media posts for the protests included the NC Party of Socialism and Liberation, Triangle Jewish Voices for Peace, Muslim for Women, Refund Raleigh, and Samidoun. In some posts, such as on MRM’s Instagram, the tags were later removed.
Per its website, Migrant Roots Media (MRM) says it is a “multilingual, multimedia platform that seeks to unearth the root causes of planetary migration through the voices of migrants, children of migrants, and those struggling to stay and thrive in their homelands.”
“We strategically position intersectional voices so they can aid in advancing narratives and socio-political analyses concerning migration and other social issues,” the MRM website says.
MRM is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)3 charity and is based in Durham.
Staff for the organization includes Founder and Executive Director Roxana Bendezú, a native of Peru with ties to Duke University’s Franklin Humanities Institute’s Social Movements Lab.
According to Bendezú’s bio, she has also participated in left-leaning organizations such as Charlotte’s local Sierra Club executive committee, Democracy North Carolina board of directors and the School of the Americas Watch national council.
Bendezú is also a member of an anti-Israel group known as Durham2Palestine and in the past helped that group to organize protests and has served as the program director for Pax Christi USA, during which she was part of the “National March for Palestine” that took place in Washington, D.C. in March 2021 where 67 anti-Israel groups called for the U.S. government to stop supporting Israel.
In May 2021, Bendezú published a “joint statement” on the MRM website calling on the Biden Administration to “Condemn Israeli government plans to Forcibly Displace Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem.” The statement was signed by 140 anti-Israel groups.
Other staffers also reside in the Durham and Chapel Hill area, such as MRM’s Chief Editor Alejandra Mejía, whose bio says she is “currently an assistant editor at Duke University Press.”
MRM’s board of directors includes Loan Tran, a far-left activist known for her LGBT activism and role in the destruction of a Confederate statue in Durham by the Communist World Workers Party in 2017.
Other organizations Tran has been linked to include the Black Lives Matter protest groups Charlotte Uprising, Do It Like Durham, and Defend Durham.
Tran was also a member of the Southern Vision Alliance, a member of Blueprint NC that supports other progressive organizations and social justice causes.
Over the years, the Southern Vision Alliance has been run by sitting Durham Councilwoman Jillian Johnson and was a co-founder of the group alongside by Elena Everett, a long-time triangle area activist. Everett has served as a board member for Blueprint NC, as did N.C. Associate Justice Anita Earls who left the board prior to her successful run for the state’s high court.
North State Journal reached out to MRM about its promotion of Samidoun organized protests in the Raleigh area but received no response.
