In today’s world of faux-outrage and paid influencers, it’ll come as no surprise to many that many of the massive pro-Palestinian protests — including the one on Oct. 8 in Times Square — were bought and paid for.
No, writes Francesca Block for The Free Press, the tens of thousands of flag-waving demonstrators demanding the “end of Israel” are “not merely a story of organic rage.”
They are, Block reports, “funded in large part by an uber-wealthy American-born tech entrepreneur, Neville Roy Singham, and his wife, Jodie Evans” — Marxists who sympathize with China and have “communist ties.”
The pro-Palestinian protests over the last month, where tens of thousands in the U.S. have chanted for the end of Israel, are not merely a story of organic rage.
Read my latest for @TheFP on some of the funders behind the fury exploding on our streetshttps://t.co/U0uonvoiK3
— Francesca Block (@FrancescaABlock) November 15, 2023
“Since 2017, Singham has been the main funder of The People’s Forum, which has co-organized at least four protests after 1,400 innocent Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7,” according to Block. “One rally, in Times Square, happened on October 8 before Israel had even counted its dead.”
The People’s Forum, based in Midtown Manhattan, claims to be a “movement incubator for working class and marginalized communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad.”
“We are an accessible educational and cultural space that nurtures the next generation of visionaries and organizers who believe that through collective action a new world is possible,” the organization states.
“But a review of public disclosure forms show that multimillionaire Singham and his wife Evans have donated over $20.4 million to The People’s Forum from 2017 to 2022 through a series of shell organizations and donor advisory groups—accounting for nearly all of the group’s funding,” Block writes.
In 1993, Singham launched a software consulting company called Thoughtworks in Chicago. In August 2017, he sold it to Apax Partners, a private equity firm, for a whopping $785 million.
“That same year, The People’s Forum was founded and set up on the ground floor of a multistory building on 37th Street just blocks from Times Square; Evans was also installed as one of its three board members,” Block reveals. “As of 2021, the organization employed 13 staff members and held more than $13.6 million in total assets.”
Following the sale of his company, Singham said in a statement that, given his “age and extreme privilege,” giving away most of his money while he’s still alive was “the best thing I could do.”
“But Singham is more than just a Marxist with deep pockets,” writes Block, citing a report in the Times. “He is also a China sympathizer who lives in Shanghai and has close ties to at least four propaganda news sites that boost the Chinese Communist Party’s image abroad.”
Singham, the child of a Cuban mother and a father from Sri Lanka, was raised with far-left politics.
At the tender age of 17, he “joined the radical Marxist group and labor union League of Revolutionary Black Worker,” according to Block, and, at 18, he went to work at a Chrysler plant in Detroit “where he took a central role with the league, helping organize strikes and partaking in ‘daily, intense self-criticism sessions.'”
Singham made it on the FBI’s radar in 1974. The Bureau investigated him as “potentially dangerous because of background, emotional instabilities or activity in groups engaged in activities inimical to the U.S.”
Singham himself posted the FBI’s report on a blog.
As a “fabulously wealthy” adult, Singham praised Hugo Chavez and claimed that “China is teaching the West that the world is better off with a dual system of both free-market adjustments and long-term planning.”
The radical entrepreneur’s wife, Evans, was “a far-left political leader” before the two were married, according to Block.
“While married to a multimillionaire data scientist in 2002, she co-founded the anti-war nonprofit Code Pink, whose members are known for wearing pink peace sign earrings and protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq,” Block reports. “Last month, a group of Code Pink followers disrupted a Senate Appropriations Committee to chant for a cease-fire in Israel as they held up their red-painted hands—calling to mind a famous 2000 image of a Palestinian man who waved his blood-soaked hands to celebrate the lynching of two IDF reservists.”
Now living in Shanghai, Singham’s backing of pro-Chinese media websites prompted Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in August to fire off a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland “requesting the Department of Justice investigate whether Singham and his web of nonprofits complied with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),” Block writes.
“The CCP is our greatest adversary,” Rubio’s letter read, “and we cannot allow it to abuse our open system to promote its malign influence any longer.”
Evans, meanwhile, claimed in a YouTube talk that China’s genocidal treatment of the Uyghurs was better than the way the United States treats political prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
At least China, Evans argued, wasn’t “torturing and keeping people in jail for 16 years with no due process.”
Despite the obvious connections, Singham has, in the past, vehemently denied he has any ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
“I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives,” he wrote in an emailed statement to the Times. “I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.”
“Though Singham’s name is nowhere to be found on The People’s Forum’s website or its tax documents, the organization isn’t shy about admitting they’re taking his cash,” Block reports. “In 2021, to dispel allegations that the nonprofit took in ‘dark money,’ The Forum posted on X (then Twitter) that Singham is ‘a Marxist comrade who sold his company & donated most of his wealth to nonprofits that focus on political education, culture & internationalism.'”
The Forum is now “focusing on its pro-Palestinian agenda, calling for ‘more marches, walk-outs, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action directed at the political offices, businesses, and workplaces that fund, invest, and collaborate with Israeli genocide and occupation,'” the journalist states. “The next protest co-organized by the forum, called ‘Shut It Down for Palestine,’ is taking place November 17 in at least 18 locations across the world including Copenhagen, New York City, Idaho, and Iowa.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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