How Stacey Abrams Helped Funnel Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to an Israel-Hating Terrorist Sympathizer

[Ubiquitous]

Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams sits on the board of a
foundation that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to an anti-Israel
activist who has praised terrorists and encouraged violence against Jews.

Abrams joined the Marguerite Casey Foundation board in May 2021, business
filings show. Roughly six months later, the foundation announced its 2021
cohort of "Freedom Scholars," a group of "leading thinkers and scholars … in
critical fields including abolitionist, Black, feminist, queer, radical, and
anti-colonialist studies." Included in the group was UCLA professor Robin
D.G. Kelley, a leading Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activist who
works with groups that collaborate with Palestinian terrorists.

Kelley, who received $250,000 through the program, praised the Palestine
Liberation Organization—a U.S.-designated terror group—as "revolutionary
combatants" and "models for those of us dedicated to Black liberation and
socialism" in a 2016 article. Three years prior, Kelley encouraged
Palestinians to use violence against Israelis, calling the notion that
Palestinians should only protest non-violently a "bludgeon to beat down
Palestinian organizations." Kelley also advises

the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a group
that operates to advance the BDS movement on college campuses. The campaign's
fiscal sponsor, Al-Awda, works with Palestinian terrorist organizations such
as Hamas to grow BDS and routinely hosts convicted Islamic jihadists at its
events, the Jerusalem Post reported in 2019.

Abrams’s role in funding Kelley provides a startling window into how the
Democrat could handle the BDS movement and larger issues of anti-Semitism on
Georgia’s college campuses should she defeat Gov. Brian Kemp (R.) in
November. As governor, Abrams would appoint members to the Board of Regents
of the University System of Georgia, which oversees the state’s public
colleges and universities. Georgia legislators passed a law in 2016 that
forbids the state from contracting a person or company that promotes a
boycott of Israel, but a federal judge struck that law down in May 2021.
Abrams opposed the law as a state representative and reportedly refused to
meet with pro-Israel activists at the time.

It is unclear whether Abrams was directly involved with the grant to Kelley.
When she joined the foundation's board in 2021, she emphasized that a major
part of her role would be determining "how the philanthropic network targets
its contributions." Neither Abrams nor the foundation responded to inquiries
on her involvement with the Freedom Scholars program. Abrams has earned more
than $52,000 from the foundation since 2020, her financial disclosures show.

In addition to Kelley's anti-Israel activism, the professor has called
himself a "communist for life" and argued that capitalism is inherently
racist. The Marguerite Casey Foundation also awarded $250,000 to a pair of
academics—Angelica Chazaro and Ananya Roy—who advocate for the abolition of
prisons and private property, respectively.

In May 2021, the foundation launched its "Answer the Uprising" initiative,
which aims to fund groups working to "transform, defund, [and] abolish"
police. The initiative was "fully supported by Marguerite Casey Foundation’s
Board of Directors, which recently named seven new changemakers to the Board,
including Stacey Abrams," the foundation said in a press release. One year
before Abrams decided to join the group's board, the foundation gave $200,000
to the Louisville Community Bail Fund, which later paid $100,000 to free
Quintez Brown, an anti-police activist charged with the attempted murder of a
Jewish mayoral candidate.

Abrams ran unopposed in Georgia's May primary election and will face Kemp in
November after the Republican defeated Trump-backed challenger and former
senator David Perdue by 52 points in his own primary bid. Her campaign
against Kemp is not her first—the Democrat lost to Kemp by roughly 2 points
in 2018 but never conceded defeat, instead arguing the election was "stolen"
due to "voter suppression." After her loss, Abrams launched a nonprofit
"voting rights" group that sued Georgia's secretary of state to challenge the
validity of the election. That lawsuit blasted the state's use of
"unreliable" voting machines and even alleged the machines "switched" votes
from Abrams to Kemp.

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Let's go Brandon!