Former Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.) has registered as a foreign agent for a shadowy European NGO to lead "fact-finding" missions to the West Bank—part of a seemingly elaborate propaganda campaign against Israel.
The ex-Squad member, who once warned pro-Israel advocacy groups that she was coming to "tear your kingdom down," signed on as an independent contractor for the International Federation for Rights and Development (IFRD), a Brussels-based "human rights" nonprofit, according to disclosures she filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act last week.
According to the contract, IFRD will pay $25,000 to Bush and her friend and campaign manager, Stephany Spaulding, for a project through January to "coordinate fact-finding delegations" to Gaza and the West Bank to elevate "the narratives of Palestinian farmers and residents with settlers in the West Bank and other occupied territories." The women's contract provides for $6,000 a month in compensation and another $7,000 for dealing with FARA compliance.
It is unclear who funds IFRD, which is led by Palestinian filmmaker Gamaal El Attar. The group does not disclose its backers, but claims it does not receive money from any foreign governments. Bush's foreign agent disclosure pulls back the curtain on its well-orchestrated PR campaign, the details of which have not been previously reported.
Bush visited the West Bank region last month. She described the mission in a post on Oct. 8, the day after the third anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre of Israelis: "Let's go to the West Bank and stand with the Palestinian who are being attacked by (invaders) settlers," she wrote.
Bush posted photos from Ramallah with her husband helping a Palestinian-American landowner to "clear the overgrowth on land he hasn't been able to farm for 3 years because of the threats from invaders."
The landowner, Yasser Alkam, appears to be a key figure in IFRD's propaganda initiative. Alkam, who ran a family law practice in Anaheim, Calif., until 2022, has hosted several American activists and elected officials and appeared on American broadcasts to draw attention to alleged Israeli settler attacks on his West Bank olive farm.
Alkam recently hosted Ben Dziobek, the director of Climate Action New Jersey, and Katie Bansil, a climate activist and former House candidate in New Jersey, on IFRD-sponsored "olive harvesting" trips to his farm, social media posts show. Bansil claimed in a post that "young settlers came and tried to provoke and intimidate us into leaving." Dziobek alleged that Israeli soldiers, whom he referred to derisively as the "Israeli Occupation Forces," "pointed guns" at him and his fellow travelers.
Alkam was featured in a video last month from New York City councilwoman Julie Won, who said the IDF detained her during an "olive harvesting" trip to the West Bank. According to reports, IFRD organized the trip for Won, who told American news outlets that she was "shell shocked" by the experience.
International activists seeking to portray Israel in an unflattering light have lately focused on the tensions between Jewish West Bank settlers and Palestinians. "Olive harvesting" expeditions are designed to get video portraying Palestinians as meek farmers being terrorized by settlers. The reality is more complex, and the left-wing American and European activists can wander into a volatile environment, from which they are expelled by Israeli troops. The activists—such as the anti-Israel Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.)—later inveigh against their treatment by the IDF.
After the West Bank visit, Bush and Alkam appeared on fired MSNBC firebrand Joy Reid's podcast, where Bush claimed she felt Jim Crow-style treatment from the Israeli military during the trip. Alkam appeared on former Rep. Matt Gaetz's show on One America News Network in September, and made the unverified claim that Israeli settlers have burned more than 40 homes and uprooted more than 15,000 olive trees in the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya.
It is unclear if Bush recruited those activists to take part in the IFRD or coordinated with any journalists on behalf of the charity.
According to her contract with IFRD, Bush will recruit current and former senators and House members and "prominent Democratic Party figures and influential political leaders" to visit the West Bank through January.
There is good reason to question the rigor of the "fact-finding missions" given threats she has made against Israel and its supporters.
After losing her Democratic primary in 2024, Bush threatened AIPAC after the pro-Israel advocacy group spent heavily in support of her opponent, Rep. Wesley Bell.
"They're about to see this other Cori, this other side," she told supporters. "AIPAC, I'm coming to tear your kingdom down."
"All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid," said Bush. The Biden administration condemned those remarks.
Other organizations similar to IFRD have led propaganda tours disguised as "olive harvesting" trips. Protect the Harvest organized one such junket last month for New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who was elected to the House this week. Lander claimed in social media posts that he and several volunteers were "detained" while "simply harvesting olives." But an agenda for the trip, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, showed that Protect the Harvest said the trip's goal was to build support for "international intervention" against Israel.
IFRD and Bush did not respond to requests for comment.
