Nashville Standard

Pro-Palestine protests at Vanderbilt University is one of several demonstrations on college campuses across the country, with student groups organizing encampments, protests, and demonstrations at their schools in an attempt to force the universities and colleges to divulge and divest from any connections that benefit Israel. 

Protests started with a group on campus at Colombia University, where three student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Within Our Lifetime, set up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on campus. Student protestors set up tents to occupy throughout the demonstration, where they “apparently ordered from Amazon and enjoy delivery pizza, coffee from Dunkin’, free sandwiches worth $12.50 from Pret a Manger, organic tortilla chips and $10 rotisserie chickens,” according to a New York Post article.

Many of these protests are planned or directed by the local branch of SJP organization. The SJP parent organization is funded by various nonprofits from multiple sources, including several that receive funds from George Soros. 

Soros funds a group the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), which provides “up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based fellows” for them to spend time organizing various campaigns led by Palestinian organizations, according to a report from the New York Post.

Some of the fellows include Nidaa Lafi, former president of the University of Texas SJP group, Craig Birckhead-Morton with the Yale SJP branch, and Malak Afaneh, the co-president of the Berkeley Law SJP group. All three have been involved in campus protests, often being detained or arrested for their involvement. 

Soros is a "Democratic mega-donor," reported Politico, who "directed his wealth into an under-the-radar 2016 campaign to advance one of the progressive movement’s core goals — reshaping the American justice system." To that end, Soros spent "more than $17 million on local district attorney races across the country "in support of left-wing candidates," reported the NY Post.

His two primary organizations are the Open Society Foundations and the Foundation to Promote Open Society, which are "two multi-billion-dollar left-of-center advocacy grantmaking foundations" which have "funded the vast majority of the most prominent left-progressive advocacy groups in the United States," reported InfluenceWatch.

He also contributed "$15 million since 2016 to groups supporting pro-Palestinian protests" last October, following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, reported the NY Post. This includes contributions to the Tides Foundation, which is a supporter of "Illinois-based Adalah Justice Project, which on the day of the Oct. 7 massacre posted a photo on Instagram of a bulldozer tearing part of Israel’s border fence down and a caption: 'Israeli colonizers believed they could indefinitely trap two million people in an open-air prison… no cage goes unchallenged.'"