(New York Post) The pro-Palestinian protests over the last month, where tens of thousands in the US have chanted for the end of Israel, are not merely a story of organic rage.
They are also funded in large part by an uber-wealthy American-born tech entrepreneur, Neville Roy Singham, and his wife, Jodie Evans.
Since 2017, Singham has been the main funder of The People’s Forum, which has co-organized at least four protests after 1,200 innocent Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas on Oct. 7.
One rally, in Times Square, happened on October 8 before Israel had even counted its dead.
Based in Midtown Manhattan, The People’s Forum calls itself a “movement incubator for working class and marginalized communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad.”
But a review of public disclosure forms shows that multimillionaire Singham and his wife Evans have donated over $20.4 million to The People’s Forum from 2017 to 2022 through a series of shell organizations and donor advisory groups — accounting for nearly all of the group’s funding.
Communist ties
Singham’s wealth stems from Thoughtworks, a software consulting company that he launched in 1993 in Chicago and sold in August 2017 to private equity firm Apax Partners for $785 million.
Neville Roy Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans, have funded large pro-Palestinian protests through The People’s Forum.Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for V-Day
That same year, The People’s Forum was founded and set up on the ground floor of a multistory building on 37th Street just blocks from Times Square; Evans was also installed as one of its three board members.
As of 2021, the organization employed 13 staff members and held more than $13.6 million in total assets.
“I decided that at my age and extreme privilege, the best thing I could do was to give away most of my money in my lifetime,” said Singham, now 69, in a statement after selling his company, according to a New York Times investigation in August.
But Singham is more than just a Marxist with deep pockets.
He is also a China sympathizer who lives in Shanghai and has close ties to at least four propaganda news sites that boost the Chinese Communist Party’s image abroad, the Times reported.
A poster for a rally organized by The People’s Forum was posted just a day after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.Twitter
These Chinese media interests are helping sow discord in the US, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told the Free Press.
“The Chinese Communist Party uses tools like Confucius Institutes on college campuses, TikTok’s addictive algorithm, and organizations like those that Mr. Singham funds to divide and weaken America,” Gallagher said.
Lifelong radical
Born to a Cuban mother and a Sri Lankan father in 1954, Singham grew up steeped in far-left politics.
His father, Archibald Singham, worked as a professor of political science at Brooklyn College and was the first scholar in residence at the New York State Martin Luther King Jr. Institute for Nonviolence, in Albany.
After spending his early days in Connecticut, Singham grew up partly in Jamaica.
When he was 17, he joined the radical Marxist group and labor union League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the following year, according to a 2021 blog post by Singham, “like all disciplined cadre [I] went to work in the factory.”
That factory was a Chrysler plant in Detroit, where he took a central role with the league, helping organize strikes and partaking in “daily, intense self-criticism sessions.”
In 1974, the FBI investigated Singham as “potentially dangerous because of background, emotional instabilities or activity in groups engaged in activities inimical to the U.S.,” according to its report, which he published on a blog.
Demonstrators gathered in Times Square for a pro-Palestinian rally on Oct. 8, 2023 — the day after Hamas’ attack.Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images
