Far-Left Outfits Endorse the Latest Iran-Backed Terrorism Campaign

Their goal was to hold Christmas hostage to their demands about Israel. Along the way, they endorsed the latest Iran-backed terrorism campaign.

“Yemen, Yemen, make us proud. Turn another ship around!” is the newest protest chant heard during anti-Israel marches in New York City, clearly referring to the attacks that the country’s Houthi rebels have launched against shipping vessels in the Red Sea. Iran has long provided funding and other assistance to the group, and the Biden administration alleges that it coordinated the recent wave of attacks with Tehran’s elite Quds Force.

Pro-Houthi demonstrations, while odd to see in the heart of Manhattan, are hardly the most disruptive of the activists’ recent activities. Holiday-season protests by anti-Israel demonstrators have earned notoriety for their disruptions. The pro-Houthi chants came amid nationwide demonstrations on December 23, dubbed “No Christmas as Usual,” the aim of which was to interrupt celebrations at neighborhoods frequented for Christmas shopping in New York and elsewhere. On Thursday, demonstrators sought to block traffic in the vicinity of JFK and LAX, prompting desperate travelers to leave exit vehicles stuck on the highway and attempt to reach the airports on foot.

Much of this activity appears to be less a spontaneous grassroots effort than the work of well-funded professional demonstrators devoted to supporting anti-U.S. authoritarian regimes and other far-left causes.

For weeks, groups in a network financed by the software billionaire Neville Roy Singham have taken a leading role in the demonstrations. It’s a key Singham outfit, the People’s Forum, that posted a video of the newest chant.

The New York Times brought Singham’s philanthropic activity to light in a comprehensive exposé on how his donations support a sprawling network of socialist nonprofits that mainly exist to propagate anti-U.S. narratives. Citing the Times’s revelation that Singham’s network shares a Shanghai office with a Chinese-government-linked media company, Senator Marco Rubio recently asked the Justice Department for an investigation into the possible foreign ties of several Singham-backed groups, including Code Pink and the People’s Forum.

Meanwhile, several of the individuals who appear in the People’s Forum clip are holding signs distributed by the ANSWER Coalition, a network of Marxist groups that got its start organizing protests against the War on Terror. One socialist website, the People’s Dispatch, credited the People’s Forum, the ANSWER Coalition, and the Palestinian Youth Movement with organizing the December 23 marches.

Less is known about the ANSWER Coalition’s sources of funding. The group’s fundraising page refers to a nonprofit called the Progress Unity Fund. On October 7, ANSWER endorsed Hamas’s massacre of Israelis, calling it a “counter-offensive by Palestinian resistance forces,” and urged a massive mobilization against Israel.