Some forces behind pro-Palestinian protests seek to upend US | GUEST COMMENTARY

All across the nation student groups have marched and organized in support of Palestine. They have occupied college campuses. They have clashed with the police. We are told these actions are largely spontaneous. We are told they are all about stopping the killing in Gaza and that they are humanitarian in nature. We are told all this is in reaction to Israeli excesses on the ground in the Middle East.

But it is clear to me that many of these events are well organized and coordinated, and they have a much larger objective than simply ending “genocide.” Some of the people driving the narrative have much bigger fish to fry, and they aim to destroy the entire social, economic and political order in the United States.

Sound excessive? Let’s dive into one piece of this phenomenon and explore what is really happening.

In April, student protesters at Columbia University were apparently looking for a way to up the ante. Over 100 of them left campus one evening and met with leaders of The People’s Forum at the organization’s headquarters in Manhattan, according to the Washington Free Beacon, a representative of which attended the meeting via Zoom.

During the meeting in Manhattan, Manolo De Los Santos, the co-executive director of the People’s Forum, told the activists to “give Joe Biden a hot summer” and to make it “untenable for the politics of usual to take place in this country.” De Los Santos also praised the protesters for “deciding that resistance is more important than negotiations,” while urging other participants at the meeting to “support our students so that the encampments can go for as long as they can.”

Hours later, the protesters then moved aggressively to occupy Hamilton Hall on Columbia’s campus.

Why would students at Columbia appear to take direction from one of its leaders? Why at a critical juncture in the protest did these student activists assemble at one location off campus to get their marching orders from one man? Maybe it would help to understand what the People’s Forum is.

The People’s Forum is a socialist organization that describes itself as a project incubator, according to Influence Watch. It regularly hosts talks and speeches from prominent socialist activists, Marxist academics and left-wing journalists. The People’s Forum routinely hosts pro-China seminars praising the Chinese Communist Party and denouncing American “imperialism.” The People’s Forum is also home to 1804 Books, a far-left publisher whose books include works by former Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and speeches by African dictators.

Claudia De la Cruz is co-executive director of The People’s Forum alongside De Los Santos. De la Cruz is a self-described “Black communist” dedicated to the establishment of a communist state in North America. She is currently running for U.S. president as the candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). De la Cruz’s campaign platform includes things like seizing control of corporations, ending capitalism and cutting our military budget by 90%. She’s also a big proponent of cozying up to Russia and China. She advocates for reparations, “decolonizing” Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and uprooting the “system.”

Both she and De Los Santos are professional Marxist revolutionaries. De Los Santos has lived in New York since he arrived there from the Dominican Republic at age 5, according to the New York Post. He has made a career out of revolutionary actions on our soil. He has close ties to Cuba and has traveled there frequently to meet with Cuban leadership. De Los Santos hailed the Oct. 7th Hamas terror attacks in Israel as heroic. He has called repeatedly for the “defeat” of the “U.S. empire.”

“When we finally deal that final blow to destroy Israel, when the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism in our lifetime,” De Los Santos said in January.

The People’s Forum receives the lion’s share of its funding from Neville Roy Singham, an American businessman and socialist. He was a member of the Black nationalist-Maoist group League of Revolutionary Black Workers during his youth and investigated by the FBI for “activities inimical to the U.S.” Singham has been accused on multiple occasions of being associated with the propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was the subject of an extensive New York Times investigative report on this topic last year. The New York Times stated that its investigation “tracked hundreds of millions of dollars” to groups affiliated with Singham. The report noted that the groups, including a political party in South Africa and news organizations in India and Brazil, mix “progressive advocacy with Chinese government talking points.” The Times report also said Singham “works closely with the Chinese government media machine” and was “financing its propaganda worldwide.” Singham lives in Shanghai. He produces a YouTube show that is financed in part by the Chinese government. He shares office space with another company that pushes Chinese propaganda worldwide.

What exactly all that adds up to is uncertain. What is certain is that some forces behind what has been happening on college campuses around the country have very little if anything to do with Palestine or students opposing genocide. That’s a lie.

Sam Faddis (contact@samfaddis.com), a Republican, is a retired CIA operations officer and the former head of CIA’s weapons of mass destruction terrorism unit.