Gustavo Torres had just left a pro-Palestinian rally at Freedom Plaza in D.C. when he reached for the words to express his solidarity with a people who are suffering.
From the Washington Post news section:
A major immigrant rights group posted about Gaza. Its backers revolted.
CASA, lauded for decades as a champion for the rights of the disenfranchised, now finds itself embroiled in a fight for its future
By Ovetta Wiggins
November 22, 2023 at 5:57 p.m. ESTGustavo Torres had just left a pro-Palestinian rally at Freedom Plaza in D.C. when he reached for the words to express his solidarity with a people who are suffering.
Nearly a month had passed since Israel began attacks in Gaza after the killing and kidnapping of Israelis by Hamas militants, and Torres, the longtime executive director of CASA, a consequential immigrants’ rights group based in Maryland, felt moved to weigh in. He, too, had endured violence, in Colombia, his native country.
So on Nov. 6, he called for an immediate cease-fire to “halt the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people” alongside protest photos uploaded to CASA’s accounts. He condemned the use of U.S. tax dollars to “promote the ongoing violence,” and offered his strong support of “the rights of Indigenous peoples and historically colonized nations to reclaim their land.”
For Torres, the statement of fewer than 260 words was a call for peace. But in the politically powerful D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, home to Maryland’s largest Jewish population—it has created anything but.
Within an hour, Torres said, his words came down, but the fallout continued. In the days that followed, a major donor pulled its funding and lawmakers questioned the group’s political activity. Some even called to defund it.
This left-wing organization gets big bucks from Maryland taxpayers.
The organization, lauded for decades as a champion for the rights of the disenfranchised, now finds itself embroiled in a public, personal fight for its future.
Torres was initially taken aback by the uproar, he said, and questioned how words that spoke for peace and humanity caused pain. …
The left-leaning group has also become known for its advocacy. It has joined other progressive groups in fights for policing reform, access to health care and an expansion of tax credits for the working poor.
With Torres at the helm, CASA has successfully fought in Maryland for in-state college tuition for undocumented students, to prohibit local jails from housing detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to keep police from asking people about their immigration status during traffic stops and investigations.
… The rest largely comes from philanthropic partners, including foundations and corporations. Among them is the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, which has given CASA $5 million over 16 years, including capital grants for two buildings that bear the name of the foundation’s founders.
Days after the posts, foundation officials met with Torres and members of his senior team and told him how deeply disturbed they were by the statement. Subsequently, they learned about one of the photos that accompanied Torres’s statement on social media. In it, a protester held a sign that read “from the river to the sea,” words that, foundation officials said, “call for the elimination of the State of Israel and the removal of its Jewish citizens.” (Others have debated its meaning.)
It was “indefensible,” they said.
The foundation cut its remaining $150,000 grant for the 2024 budget and plans to redirect it to another nonprofit committed to serving refugees and asylum seekers in Maryland. It also decided to remove Harry and Jeanette Weinberg’s names from the two CASA buildings that the foundation helped fund and said it would pay for the costs associated with removing the signage. …
Sen. Benjamin F. Kramer (D-Montgomery) … Two days after Torres’s post, Kramer and his colleagues threatened CASA with the possibility of losing its state funding in the letter.
The Democrats have only one plan for holding their awkward Coalition of the Fringes together, which is to demonize straight white gentile men even harder. So expect even more talk about how Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just the tip of the iceberg of all the straight white gentile men who are secretly waging violence against Palestinians and Jews simultaneously, because of Hate.
