Anti-Israel agitators who spread disruption at US colleges and were punished by authorities were awarded checks for $1,000 by a Muslim nonprofit, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n
The money was given to students who faced penalties for leading pro-Palestinian protests before and after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2023, according to a bombshell report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN).<\/p>\n
The cash was awarded from a \u201cChampions of Justice Fund,\u201d set up by the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations\u2019 (CAIR) as \u201cinstitutional endorsement,\u201d the report claims.<\/p>\n
In California, the largest arm of the CAIR web of nonprofits, affiliates in San Francisco and Los Angeles raised more than $100,000 in donations for campus radicals, while the main group solicited $64,000 in donations<\/a>, records show.<\/p>\n A protestor who had broken and and occupied Hamilton Hall at Columbia University\u2019s Campus on April 30, 2024. Getty Images<\/p>\n Students who lost housing and scholarships for their participating in anti-Israel protests were rewarded with grants from CAIR, says a new report about the Muslim civil rights group. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n The money was then offered as interest free loans in grants of $1,000 to students who lost \u201cscholarships, housing or other support because of their advocacy,\u201d according to CAIR\u2019s website.<\/p>\n In October 2024, CAIR-CA awarded $20,000 in loans and scholarships to 20 student protestors from the \u201cChampions of Justice Fund.\u201d<\/p>\n The identities of the student recipients have never been revealed, but the institutions they attend were in CAIR\u2019s literature, and included Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.<\/p>\n CAIR gave scholarships to students from schools across the country who were targeted by authorities after they participated in anti-Israel encampments following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks against Israel. A Continuous Charity<\/p>\n Harvard Law graduate Ibrahim Bharmal went to work for CAIR in California helping immigrants after his graduation from the Ivy League school. Instagram\/betterdays_arecoming25\/<\/p>\n That means students suspended or expelled from Columbia University for storming and occupying the university\u2019s Hamilton Hall, barricading themselves inside the building with furniture and padlocks on April 30, 2024 \u2014 an incident which resulted in the building having to be stormed by police \u2014 could have potentially qualified for the $1,000 checks.<\/p>\n \u201cThese programs support students after acts of criminality and violence, creating a reward structure for building the most militant face of the movement. This is how ideologies metastasize,\u201d NCRI founder\u00a0Joel Finkelstein warned to The Post. \u00a0<\/p>\n Ibrahim Bharmal accosted a Jewish student during a \u201cdie-in\u201d to protest the bombing of a hospital in Gaza in October, 2023. He later received funding from CAIR. Twitter\/AvivaKlompas<\/p>\n One testimonial published by CAIR in literature about their fund read: \u201cThe consequences of my pro-Palestine advocacy have been swift and severe. As a safety Marshal at a protest against the bombing of the Al-Shifa hospital, I was doxxed by Zionist students, leading to my information being spread to the far-right media.<\/p>\n \u201cI have endured relentless death threats, lost my summer law firm offer and its accompanying diversity scholarship. This ordeal has set me back at least $115,000 in lost income and legal fees, an overwhelming burden for my working class family.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the quote is anonymous, the details match those of Ibrahim Bharmal. He was arrested on Oct. 18 at Harvard Business School campus after participating in a \u201cdie in,\u201d the night after Al-Shifa hospital was bombed in Gaza. At the time he was volunteering as a safety marshal.<\/p>\n A protester is dragged away from Hamilton Hall on Columbia\u2019s campus after police entered the building to flush it out on April 30, 2024. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n Hussam Ayloush, who heads up the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR, led a \u201cteach-in\u201d during the anti-Israel encampment at University of California Riverside. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n He also told the Boston Globe he lost his summer placement at a prominent law firm as a result of the altercation.<\/p>\n Bharmal, 29, was later sentenced to 80 hours of community service and to complete an anger management program for an assault of a Jewish business student during the campus protest.<\/p>\n He and others surrounded the\u00a0student, Yoav Segev, and waved\u00a0\u00a0kaffiyehs\u00a0at him while yelling \u201cshame!\u201d to his face, blocking Segev from leaving.<\/p>\n Pro-Palestinian student protestors were rewarded with grants from CAIR in California. ALLISON DINNER\/EPA-EFE\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Bharmal never received any punishment from\u00a0Harvard for his conduct. In fact, a year after his arrest he was even awarded a $65,000 fellowship<\/a> by Harvard Law Review, a publication he had contributed to, for graduates who plan to go into the public sector.<\/p>\n Bharmal graduated in 2025 and now works at CAIR-Los Angeles as an immigration rights fellow. He did not respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment about how much money he had received from CAIR.<\/p>\n CAIR leaders backed many of the anti-Israel encampments. On the second day of a student encampment at University of California Riverside in the spring of 2024,\u00a0Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles Area office of CAIR led a teach-in and gave a talk to the anti-Israel protestors, according a report.<\/a><\/p>\n CAIR doled out funds to students who had been arrested after participating in anti-Israel protests at college campuses across the US. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n CAIR says it is the largest Muslim charity in the US, receiving hundreds of thousands in donations from progressive nonprofits, including Tides Foundation and the California-based Weingart Foundation.<\/p>\n It claims that less than 1% of its funding comes from outside of the US. However, when an ex-employee, Lori Saroya, filed a lawsuit against\u00a0CAIR for defamation, which asked for details on who their foreign sources of funding were,\u00a0and\u00a0a judge ruled they had to disclose them, the charity\u00a0abruptly settled the case out of court.<\/p>\n The charity had previously been awarded $500,000 from Saudi Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, according to a 2002 report in Arabnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n