The Rieders Foundation is filing a formal complaint with the New York state division of Human Rights on Monday May 20, 2019 against the Rockefeller Brother’s Foundation (RBF) for its extensive and well-documented donations to groups with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel bias. Attached to the complaint is a 19 page report outlining the various individuals and organizations that the RBF supplies with grants. Stephen Heintz, president of the RBF, responded to these claims in an article that was published in Tablet magazine. Heintz reiterated that donations regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were “aimed at ending the 50-year long occupation in order to bring justice, dignity, and security to all Israelis and Palestinians.”

Heintz failed to acknowledge that many of the recipients of RBF grants strongly support a 1 state solution, as well as the boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) movement. BDS is widely recognized as the least productive path to a peaceful solution, eliminating the possibility for two states to coexist side by side. Legislation in the United States has made BDS irrelevant in 27 states and the number is increasing steadily. BDS is a symbolic replacement for traditional anti-Semitism, as was recognized 5/17/2019 by the German Bundestag.