New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who is the state’s top accountant and is spearheading the campaign, cites the importance of transparency.

Observers warn that “shareholder activism” in pursuit of political disclosure represents the first stage of coordinated intimidation campaigns against private companies conducted in the hope of discouraging them from donating to right-of-center nonprofit groups.

DiNapoli’s push is focused on major companies in which the state’s retirement fund is invested. DiNapoli, the fund’s sole trustee, wants those companies to disclose all of their political expenditures.

DiNapoli has already succeeded in convincing KeyCorp, a major commercial bank based in Cleveland, Ohio, to make its political activities public. The company agreed in December to disclose political spending if DiNapoli would withdraw a shareholder resolution designed to force those disclosures.

Three other companies agreed early last year to disclose political spending in the face of shareholder resolutions filed by the comptroller’s office.

DiNapoli boasts that he has filed 26 additional shareholder resolutions for 2013 demanding that companies in which the New York State Common Retirement Fund is invested make their political expenditures public. A spokesperson declined to say which other companies have been targeted.

DiNapoli’s office is also suing QualComm Inc., one of the nation’s largest mobile technology companies, alleging that it has refused to comply with the state’s efforts to force disclosure of its political spending.

Sarah Lee, the communications director of the Center for Competitive Politics, claims the lawsuit was filed “with the intent of pressuring the company into withdrawing support from trade groups that fight liberal political initiatives.”

Former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins warned that DiNapoli’s campaign is part of an attempt to “clear the playing field of any kind of opposing viewpoint.”

“All this is coordinated,” Atkins, now the CEO of Patomak Global Partners, said in a telephone conversation. The objective is to “strangle the other side’s resources.”

KeyCorp’s political action committee gives significantly more to Republicans than Democrats, and has in every election cycle but one since 1996. QualComm’s founder, billionaire Irwin Jacobs, is a major Democratic donor, but the company’s PAC is more even-handed in its contributions.

DiNapoli spokesperson Eric Sumberg denied that the shareholder resolution effort is partisan in nature.

“It’s about transparency and disclosure,” he said.

Sumberg also said that the comptroller had not coordinated with any of the nonprofit groups promoting corporate political disclosure.

However, DiNapoli is closely associated with a pair of those groups.

He is a founding member of the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, a pro-disclosure nonprofit funded in part by George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

DiNapoli has also “worked alongside” a similar group called the Center for Political Accountability, according to the comptroller’s website. Both the Open Society Institute and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, in addition to other prominent liberal foundations, have financially supported that group.

These liberal foundations have also funded other organizations that make little effort to hide the partisan nature of their shareholder activism tactics.

Those tactics have become a major component of left-wing attempts to attack companies that donate to groups they do not like.

Left-wing activist blog Media Matters for America, which has received donations from both the Open Society Institute and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, laid out the strategy in a 2010 publication.

Media Matters argued that disclosure of corporate political spending allows the group or its allies to attack companies that support conservative policies or organizations and, ideally, pressure the companies to cease that support.

“Media Matters Action Network will track all [hypothetical company’s] campaign expenditures in its database and may aggressively attack [the company], or provide the information to progressive partners to attack [the company] for supporting policies” that run counter to the left’s agenda.

Media Matters added that it would use public campaign finance information to distort companies’ political views by portraying every contribution to a candidate with which the group disagrees “as a complete endorsement of everything that a politician has said or done.”

Those tactics were effectively deployed against retail giant Target Corp. Target disclosed in 2010 that it donated to a pro-business group called Minnesota Forward. Left-wing groups, spearheaded by MoveOn.org, organized an attack campaign against the company, claiming it endorsed the views of every candidate to which Minnesota Forward contributed.

Target was forced to apologize for the contribution.

A small group of left-wing individuals and organizations continues to submit the vast majority of political spending-related shareholder proposals, according to a study of the practice by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

More than two thirds of all disclosure-related shareholder resolutions aimed at Fortune 200 companies in 2012 were sponsored by labor unions, labor union-affiliated pension funds—including New York’s Common Retirement Fund—or one of four individuals the study dubs “corporate gadflies.”

Only 17 percent of shareholders supported resolutions requiring disclosure in 2012, according to the study. However, critics of the practice are concerned DiNapoli’s effort could be more successful.

With KeyCorp. and other companies voluntarily disclosing their political spending, the New York campaign could initiate a domino effect as disclosure becomes the norm.

“Increasing the number of companies that have adopted political disclosure is important because it begins to create pressure on other companies that have not adopted to do so,” said Bruce Freed, the founder and president of the Center for Political Accountability (CPA). “That will make political disclosure a standard.”

Former SEC commissioner Atkins sees that strategy at play in New York.

“They’re trying to get the momentum up,” he said. The goal is to create a “chilling effect … so that [other companies] see what’s going on.”

Hagel sits on the board of Ploughshares Fund, a progressive foundation that has granted more than $2 million to organizations that employ some of Hagel’s most outspoken advocates, who favor lifting sanctions on Iran, oppose military action against its nuclear program, and hope to weaken the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Organizations that have received donations from Ploughshares include the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the Center for American Progress (CAP), J Street, the National Security Network (NSN), and the Truman National Security Project, among others.

These individuals and organizations have worked closely with Hagel, a former Republican Nebraska senator, to oppose military action against Iran and to undermine pro-Israel initiatives aimed at bolstering the security of the Jewish state.

These same groups are now waging a media campaign to ensure their long time ally becomes the Pentagon’s top official, a posting that would put Hagel in charge of developing plans for a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

NIAC, an advocacy group long suspected of concealing its illicit ties to the Iranian regime, has emerged as perhaps the most vocal defender of Hagel’s nomination as it pertains to Iran.

The group has received more than $600,000 in grants from Ploughshares since 2007.

“Hagel’s prospective nomination should never have been controversial in the first place,” NIAC President Trita Parsi recently wrote in the Huffington Post. “Hagel is a highly respected military mind who served both in the military and in the Senate with dignity and courage.”

Parsi went on to slam “neoconservatives” and pro-Israel activists for challenging Hagel’s nomination and said that Hagel, who has championed direct negotiations with Iran, would lead the charge to prevent America from attacking Tehran’s nuclear sites.

“On Iran, his presence in the Obama administration would inject a much-needed dose of clear-sighted realism and strategic thinking,” Parsi wrote. “He would provide Obama’s national security team with the patience needed to ensure that America doesn’t commit another strategic mistake such as Iraq.”

Parsi has also attacked Hagel’s critics in various news reports.

Ploughshares has given NIAC hundreds of thousands of dollars to peddle “non-military approaches to resolving the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program,” as well as to increase U.S.-Tehran outreach, according to funding documents. Parsi did not disclose his relationship with Ploughshares in his pro-Hagel writings.

The President Barack Obama-aligned Center for American Progress, or CAP, has also rushed to Hagel’s defense. It has received more than $300,000 from Ploughshares, including $250,000 for “an expanded initiative on Iran aimed at countering support for military action” against Iran.

CAP, like NIAC, has publicly referred to Hagel as an “uncontroversial choice” despite outcry from lawmakers and Jewish leaders who maintain that Hagel is anti-Israel due to his controversial comments about the so-called “Jewish lobby.”

CAP has also claimed that Hagel is stridently pro-Israel.

“The Nebraska Republican has a history of strong support for Israel, as this blog recently noted,” the CAP Action Fund wrote on its ThinkProgress blog earlier this month.

The National Security Network, a progressive foreign policy group that has decried all talk of military intervention in Iran, has defended Hagel on MSNBC and elsewhere. It received about $100,000 from Ploughshares in 2011.

Hagel “has a really close, personal relationship with the president and that’s clearly very, very important to this president,” NSN Executive Director Heather Hurlburt said earlier this month on MSNBC’s “The Last Word.” “He’s also just been, you know, not in the pocket of the defense industry as, frankly, some of our intellectuals in both parties have.”

Hurlburt also took to the pages of U.S. News and World Report to lavish praise on Hagel’s “mainstream” foreign policy views. She did not disclosure her relationship with Ploughshares in these writings.

Additionally, the liberal fringe group J Street has emerged as the sole Jewish community group to lobby on Hagel’s behalf.

Ploughshares gave J Street $100,000 between 2011 and 2012 to “lobby Congress against the use of military force on Iran.”

J Street has been on the offense since the first rumors of Hagel’s nomination. The group has tried to convince a skeptical Jewish community that Hagel is sufficiently pro-Israel, yet it has not disclosed its relationship to Ploughshares.

Hagel will serve as a “valued voice of reason in Obama’s cabinet,” according to the Ploughshares-funded J Street, which has long lobbied to increase U.S. engagement with Tehran and weaken America’s alliance with Israel.

Additionally, J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami told USA Today earlier this month that Hagel appreciates “the appropriate uses and limitations” of U.S. power.

J Street and NIAC were also part of 2009 plot to torpedo Obama’s appointment of Dennis Ross as an Iran envoy. The groups opposed Ross because of his tough stance on Tehran.

Ploughshares also partners with the Truman National Security Project, which received at least $310,000 in part to “counter calls for military action against on Iran.”

Truman has united with the Center for National Policy in recent weeks to bolster Hagel’s nomination, according to reports.

Moreover, Truman founding President Rachel Kleinfeld penned a pro-Hagel opinion piece in AOL Defense this month. She did not disclose her relationship to Ploughshares in the piece.

Iranian opposition leaders and experts warned that Hagel has aligned himself with dangerous pro-Tehran players.

“The nomination of Chuck Hagel is alarming for the future of U.S. foreign policy,” said Saba Farzan, a senior fellow and head of Iran research at the Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin. “At the forefront within the debate happening in the US’s capital is that groups like NIAC cheer for Mr. Hagel.”

“Now, whatever NIAC is it certainly is not an organization of true freedom for Iran,” Farzan said. “As a matter of fact, Chuck Hagel and NIAC appear to be soul mates—both oppose sanctions until this very day, both have opposed classifying the [Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps] as a terrorist group, both have a very anti-Israel standpoint and both advocate for dialogue with a regime that is using every second of those talks, going on for more than three decades, to brutalize its own innocent people and to act against U.S. national security.”

Hagel’s nomination has also been embraced by Tehran.

“Iran is excited about this nomination,” said Saeed Ghasseminejad, spokesman for the Iranian Liberal Students and Graduates association.

“When Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson was asked about Hagel’s nomination he replied that Tehran hoped the appointment of Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. defense secretary would lead to ‘practical changes’ in Washington’s foreign policy,” Ghasseminejad said. “His appointment undermines US effort to stop Iran’s nuclear problem.”

“[Iran] sees itself in a holy war against Israel. Iran sees Hagel’s appointment as a sign of decreasing support for Israel in D.C,” Ghasseminejad said.

Other far left recipients of Ploughshares’ funds have quickly leaped to Hagel’s defense in the weeks since the president selected him.

Media Matters for America (MMFA), the left-leaning media watchdog group that once employed purveyor of anti-Semitic language, M.J. Rosenberg, has touted Hagel in the press since benefiting from a nearly $100,000 cash infusion courtesy of Ploughshares.

MMFA senior fellow Eric Boehlert lashed out at Hagel’s critics in the Huffington Post this month.

The Nation Institute, publisher of the liberal Nation magazine, has also celebrated Hagel’s nomination. The institute has received $30,000 from Ploughshares’ coffers.

“In almost every respect relevant to the position for which he was nominated, Hagel is remarkably well qualified,” wrote the Nation’s Eric Alterman on Jan. 8.

The New America Foundation has also reported for duty in the pro-Hagel media campaign.

Steve Clemons, founder of the American strategy program at the New America Foundation, defended Hagel following a Washington Free Beacon report on his drive to shutter a popular USO port in Haifa, Israel.

Clemons also defended Hagel after he was criticized for making highly inflammatory comments about gay people.

The New America Foundation has accepted at least $150,000 from Ploughshares.

Experts said it is clear that Ploughshares wants to help Hagel win confirmation.

“The Ploughshares Fund has in recent years been Three-Card Monte for Tehran, shifting funding from organization to organization but always for the purpose of laundering Iran’s image or advocating for its positions,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon advisor and Iran and Iraq. “With the Hagel operation, it certainly seems that Ploughshares hardly even tries to hide its political hackery.”

Ploughshares declined to make an official available for comment about Hagel.

The emails obtained by the Caller through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show extensive communication between Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers concerning multiple developing stories over several years.

The Caller report analyzed several different email conversations, showing that the DOJ and Media Matters collaborated on countering coverage of the “New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal,” the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, and possibly coverage of the Trayvon Martin slaying. The analysis shows rapid, real-time communication between Media Matters and Schmaler while stories were being reported by FOX News.

The Caller’s analysis also indicates that the DOJ and Media Matters cooperated on an article attacking House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), with the article “Rep. Issa Ties Himself In Fast And Furious Knots” appearing soon after their email conversation.

Bilguudei Ganhuyag, 24, has accused John Landrum Bryant, husband of real estate heiress and liberal activist Patricia Bauman, of firing him for refusing to engage in a sexual relationship, according to DNAInfo.com. He is suing the power couple for $6 million.

The suit would put only a small dent into the Bauman family fortune, and the $100 million foundation Bauman uses to influence liberal circles.

Bauman has contributed nearly $300,000 to Democratic candidates and causes since 2008, and has financing some of liberalism’s largest organizations.

She contributed $10,000 to American Bridge 21st Century, a Super PAC that performs opposition research against Republican candidates. The Bauman Foundation also gave a total of $6,300 to President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

The Bauman Foundation has given millions of dollars more to liberal organizations over the past decade. Patricia Bauman also has tied to the secretive Democracy Alliance, which directs tens of millions of dollars into select progressive coffers each year, including the Center for American Progress, Media Matters, and the Obama affiliated Super PAC Priorities USA.

The Alliance is an association of wealthy liberal donors that directs political giving to a handful of “favored organizations.” It has also partnered with a number of foundations, giving it access to hundreds, rather than tens, of millions of dollars in liberal philanthropy.

“When you include foundations, the left has a far higher reach into big money than the right,” said Jacob Laksin, author of The New Leviathan. “They wield a lot of influence in Democratic circles … the Democracy Alliance is part of that.”

The Alliance does not handle any of the donations directly, which allows members to avoid disclosure. It did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment.

Alliance member Anne Bartley sits on the Bauman Foundation’s board of directors and has helped forge a partnership between the two groups. It is unclear if Bauman is a member of the group, which forbids members from publicly speaking about the group’s inner workings.

Bauman did not return calls and emails seeking comment.

CBN News’ Erick Stakelbeck reports:

As part of its strategy, Media Matters frequently targets Christian organizations in an effort to counter what it views as pro-Christian “bias in news reporting and analysis by the American media.”

“It is common for news and commentary by the press to present viewpoints that tend to overly promote … a conservative, Christian-influenced ideology,” the group said in its application for non-profit status with the IRS.

David Brog, the executive director of Christians United for Israel, told the publication that MMFA’s anti-Christian views are likely tied to its anti-Israel bias.

“They want to take on what they see as a Christian-influenced media and Christian-influenced policy, and no better place to start than with the issue of Israel and with attacking U.S. support of Israel,” Brog told the outlet.

Earlier today, MMFA researcher Walid Zafar cast aspersions on Wasserman Schultz for backing out of a fundraiser hosted by Khurrum Wahid, a controversial attorney with a track record of defending accused terrorists and associating with Muslim Brotherhood-backed groups.

“Shame on Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” Zafar tweeted, including a link to a story about the botched fundraiser.

The Free Beacon was among the first outlets to report on Wasserman Schultz’s scheduled appearance at the fundraiser—an event that she subsequently pulled out of after “a miscommunication” with organizers.

Zafar’s virtual insult quickly caught the eye of Rosenberg, who subsequently promoted the message on Twitter.

Rosenberg parted ways with Media Matters last week after months of public pressure from pro-Israel forces tainted the liberal watchdog group’s reputation and led accusations of anti-Israel bias.

Zafar, who was born in Kabul, according to an online biography, has written critically about Israel in the past, alleging that the Jewish state “is notorious for its use of such bombings, what they call ‘targeted killings.’ ”

He also has accused Israel of sustaining a conflict with the Palestinians for purely economic reasons.

“Most important is that Israel’s economy is built, designed and constructed on a security apparatus,” he wrote for The Melon, an online community portal. “While most Israelis want peace, the sad truth is that war is the lifeline of the Israeli economy.”

In a separate post on his personal blog entitled, “The Wikilobby,” Zafar discusses attempts “to turn Wikipedia into another pro-Israel tool.”

Rosenberg is the notorious proprietor of the term “Israel firster,” a phrase with origins in the white supremacist movement that many consider anti-Semitic. During his tenure at MMFA, Rosenberg proudly used the term in his weekly columns and on his Twitter feed in an attempt to paint pro-Israel lawmakers and American Jews as being more loyal to the state of Israel than America.

In a final post titled, Last Media Matters Column, Rosenberg signed off by admitting that he had tarnished the liberal group’s image.

“The reason for this step is that it disturbed me greatly to see an organization to which I am devoted facing possible harm because of my critical writings about Israel,” he wrote. “I have no doubt that the crowd that opposes any and all criticism of Israeli government policies will continue to turn its guns on Media Matters if I am associated with it.”

Lashing out at the pro-Israel movement and outlets like the Washington Free Beacon—which thoroughly investigated and chronicled the controversy—Rosenberg griped that his “presence here [at MMFA] is being used in an effort to shut Media Matters up.”

He cast blame on “the right-wing pro-Israel types,” and weaved unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, in a follow up article posted Saturday on the Huffington Post.

“Followed to its logical conclusion that means that criticizing Israel and its lobby is, in fact, dangerous and I had to leave to protect an organization I love from people who, in their single-minded devotion to the Israeli government, will go after anyone and anything who stands in their way,” he wrote.

At several points leading up to his departure, the Free Beacon attempted to ask MMFA’s top officials if they considered Rosenberg’s rhetoric appropriate.

On one such occasion, Media Matters founder David Brock evaded a reporter’s questions about the controversy.

On March 25, the Free Beacon approached Ari Rabin Havt, the group’s executive vice president, who responded to questions by distancing himself from Rosenberg’s use of the “Israel firster” slur. Rosenberg resigned from Media Matters on April 6.

One of the clearest signs that Rosenberg’s smears had struck a nerve among Israel’s chief advocates came when Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz launched a “personal war” to end Rosenberg’s career.

Dershowitz called Rosenberg “radioactive” and a “perennial liar” who “deserved what he got” in an interview Saturday with the Free Beacon.

“I’m proud of whatever small role I played,” Dershowitz said, explaining that if Media Matters and Rosenberg had not parted ways, the latter’s association with the group would have become an electoral issue for President Obama.

“I really do think that if Media Matter had kept Rosenberg on, this would have become the Jeremiah Wright issue of the 2012 election,” he said, referring to Obama’s controversial former pastor whose anti-Semitic and anti-American rants dogged Obama on the 2008 campaign trail.

“It’s a good thing for the White House. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some calls to Media Matters from the White House” expressing ire about Rosenberg’s rhetoric, Dershowitz added. “It would have been a smart thing for somebody to have made it clear that the White House could not have any association to somebody who accuses [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] of not having loyalty to the U.S. That is such an off the chart accusation.”

Rosenberg declined to be interviewed by the Free Beacon on grounds that it is a “racist” publication, though he provided no evidence to support this allegation.

“No interviews with racist right media. Ever,” Rosenberg tweeted in response to a reporter’s request for comment via Twitter. “I would never talk to your ridiculous publication.”

Aside from charging American Jews and members of Congress of being “Israel firsters,” Rosenberg frequently wrote about what he claims is AIPAC’s nefarious control over the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

In his Saturday posting about the controversy, Rosenberg continued his assault on AIPAC, accusing the group of “fomenting Islamo-hatred in this country.”

Dershowitz said this type of rhetoric reveals that Rosenberg’s true audience is the “hard left,” or those who reflexively blame Israel for all of the world’s woes.

“He will continue to write for Al Jazeera and that’s perfect,” Dershowitz said. “He’ll go where he belongs—to the irrational ‘Israel’s always wrong’ camp. He’s never been good at nuanced critique of Israel.”

Rosenberg, however, is waging a losing ideological battle, Dershowitz said.

“The hard left has one criteria today: If you’re anti-Israel you’re good, and if you’re nuanced about it you must be a fascist,” he explained. “The hard left is losing this fight. Serious intellectuals don’t take seriously the ravings of the hard left about Israel.”

Since being singled out by the Emergency Committee for Israel in a New York Times advertisement last week, most of the foundations in question have remained silent about the reasons they gave grants to the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Media Matters for America (MMFA), both of which have come under fire for their use of the term “Israel firster,” an epithet that has its roots in the white supremacist movement.

Notably, several of the foundations that have contributed heavily to Media Matters are principally sponsored by prominent Jewish philanthropists and are closely tied to various pro-Israel organizations.

Together, these charities have donated millions of dollars to CAP and MMFA over the years, leaving many observers to wonder whether these nonprofits realize that they are funding such vitriolic content.

One of the foundations chastised by ECI—Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund—defended its donations in a statement to the Free Beacon.

“The information cited on Media Matter’s grantee list refers to grants recommended by individual donors who have donor-advised fund accounts at Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund,” Teri Ginsburg, a spokesperson for Fidelity’s charitable arm, said in a statement to the Free Beacon. “These are not grants from Fidelity Investments.”

Like many of the Jewish community nonprofits that have come under fire in recent weeks for their donations to Media Matters, Fidelity claimed that it is not directly responsible for the donations made under its banner.

Fidelity maintained that it has little to no control over where a donor chooses to give.

“When a donor chooses to recommend a grant(s) anonymously, the nonprofit organization sometimes attributes the grant(s) in their Annual Report or other materials to Fidelity Charitable, rather than to the recommending donor,” Ginsburg said. “Fidelity Charitable does not endorse organizations who receive grants recommended by its donors.”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is listed as a donor to CAP, declined comment when reached last week by the Free Beacon.

Asked, however, if the organization was aware of the ECI ad, a spokesperson for the charity replied that he had “heard about it.”

None of the other foundations cited in the ECI advertisement—which urged viewers to “Call these foundations and ask them, ‘Why are you funding bigotry and anti-Israel extremist?’”—responded to multiple requests seeking comment.

These groups include: The Pritzker Family Foundation, Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, General Motors Foundation, the Schwab Charitable Fund, and a slew of other Jewish-run charities.

The Pritzker Family Foundation—which donated $400,000 to MMFA between 2007 and 2009—is partly run by Penny Pritzker, who served as the finance chair for President Obama’s presidential campaign.

Also tied to the foundation is Jay Robert Pritzker, a Chicago-based businessman and Obama backer who has worked with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s leading pro-Israel lobby.

Some observers continue to wonder why these charities are promoting views contrary to those of the mainstream Jewish community.

“Is [Pritzker’s] support of President Obama so strong that he ignores MMFA’s questioning of Jewish loyalty to America?” wondered Jeff Dunetz, a Jewish commentator who writes for the website Yid With Lid. “I would ask the same of the Rapoport Foundation who gives generously to the Jerusalem Foundation and United Jewish Communities, the Ellis Foundation who donates so generously to Hillel, and many others on the above list.”

The Rapoport Foundation—which gave Media Matters $275,000 between 2005 and 2009—is run by the Texas-based businessman Bernard Rapoport and his wife, Audre.

In the past, the couple’s foundation has donated to the United Jewish Communities (now called the Jewish Federations of North America), a centrist umbrella group that serves Jewish community groups nationwide.

Dunetz, like other Jewish observers, believes the donations reveal that many liberal Jews are actively working against their community’s best interests.

“Sometimes we Jews tend to be our own worst enemies,” he wrote.  “As [the Jewish scholar] Ze’ev Jabotinsky said, Jews shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life, that you must not ‘meet halfway’ those who do not want to meet you.”

Josh Block, formerly a top official at AIPAC, told the Free Beacon last week that Jewish nonprofits and those aligned with the Jewish community should actively ensure that philanthropic monies are not doled out to those who subvert Jewish values.

“Media Matters is currently in the business of paying for and spreading anti-Israel and anti-Semitic invective, and these donations—which do not comport with Jewish communal values—are funding that organization and its work,” said Block, who is currently a Middle East analyst.

He added that “these Jewish organizations have a special obligation to stand up and declare that funding groups using rhetoric that the ADL, AJC, and Simon Wiesenthal Center have all identified as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel is simply not appropriate—unless of course they agree with Media Matters and neo-Nazis that it is a good idea to call elected officials and other pro-Israel Americans ‘Israel firsters.’”

Media Matters has refused to apologize for its continued use of the “Israel firster” slur, and its chief offender, M.J. Rosenberg, remains employed by the group—despite multiple calls for his resignation from prominent Israel activists.

The AJC and ADL—among the Jewish community’s chief defenders—initially criticized both CAP and Media Matters for using vitriolic smears. Lately, however, both organizations have backed down, and have even criticized ECI for quoting them in the Times ad.

Neither the ADL nor AJC responded to a request seeking comment on MMFA’s continued use of the term “Israel firster.”

One MMFA donor not mentioned in the ECI ad is the Ford Foundation, which has a history of funding anti-Semitic, pro-Palestine groups.

In 2003, it was revealed that Ford was bankrolling many of the pro-Palestine groups responsible for promoting anti-Semitism at the Durban conference, a United Nations-backed confab on racism that devolved into an anti-Israel free for all.

Ford donated nearly $1 million dollars to MMFA between 2010 and 2011.

Among those institutions that saw their fortunes evaporate were foundations that had placed their trust and investments in Madoff’s surreal enterprise. Three of those philanthropies contributed money to Media Matters in 2008, at least one of which may have even been complicit in Madoff’s scheme.

The Picower Foundation, which The New York Times referred to as “one of the nation’s leading philanthropies,” shuttered its $1 billion enterprise after Madoff’s arrest. Barbara Picower, who co-founded the charity with her late husband, investor Jeffry M. Picower, told the Times in December 2008 that Madoff’s “act of fraud has had a devastating impact on tens of thousands of lives as well as numerous philanthropic foundations and nonprofit organizations.”

But Jeffry Picower was one of Madoff’s single largest beneficiaries, and many believe he was hardly an unwitting victim of the Madoff scheme.