Financing the Flames: How Tax-Exempt and Public Money Fuel a Culture of Confrontation and Terror in Israel

Edwin Black s latest book, Financing the Flames: How Tax-Exempt and Public Money Fuel a Culture of Confrontation and Terrorism in Israel, pulls the cover off the robust use of US tax-exempt, tax-subsidized, and public monies to foment agitation, systematically destabilize the Israel Defense Forces, and finance terrorists in Israel. In a far-flung investigation in the United States, Israel and the West Bank, human-rights investigative reporter Edwin Black documents that it is actually the highly politicized human rights organizations and NGOs themselves all American taxpayer supported which are financing the flames that make peace in Israel difficult if not impossible. Black spotlights key charitable organizations such as the Ford Foundation, George Soros s Open Society Foundations, the New Israel Fund, and many others, as well as American taxpayers as a group. Instead of promoting peace and reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis, a variety of taxpayer-subsidized organizations have funded a culture where peace does not pay, but warfare and confrontation do. Ironically, several Jewish organizations, scooping up millions in tax-subsidized donations, stand at the forefront of the problem. At the same time, the author details at great length the laudable and helpful activities of such groups as the New Israel Fund; he chronicles a heartbreaking conflict between stated intent and true impact on the ground. In addition to documenting questionable 501(c)(3) activity, Black documents the direct relationship between taxpayer assistance to the Palestinian Authority and individuals engaged in terrorism against civilians.

Edwin Black is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling international investigative author of 120 award-winning editions in 14 languages in 65 countries, as well as scores of newspaper and magazine articles in the leading publications of the United States, Europe and Israel. With more than a million books in print, his work focuses on genocide and hate, corporate criminality and corruption, governmental misconduct, academic fraud, philanthropy abuse, oil addiction, alternative energy and historical investigation. Editors have submitted Black's work ten times for Pulitzer Prize nomination, and in recent years he has been the recipient of a series of top editorial awards. He has also contributed to a number of anthologies worldwide. For his work, Black has been interviewed on hundreds of network broadcasts from Oprah, the Today Show, CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports and NBC Dateline in the US, as well as the leading networks of Europe and Latin American. His works have been the subject of numerous documentaries, here and abroad. Many of his books have been optioned by Hollywood for film, with two in active production. His latest film is the screen adaptation War Against the Weak, based on his book of the same name. Black's speaking tours include hundreds of events in dozens of cities each year, appearing at prestigious venues from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. to the Simon Wiesenthal Institute in Los Angeles, also in Europe from London's British War Museum and Amsterdam's Institute for War Documentation to Munich's Carl Orff Hall. In recent times he has appeared to speak, lecture or testify in three legislatures on social justice issues: U.S. House of Representatives, North Carolina General Assembly, and the European Parliament. Black is a leading contributor to The Cutting Edge News, which receives more than 1.5 million visits monthly, as well as the Huffington Post, the Times of Israel, and numerous other on-line publications. His weekly human rights and social justice TV show, The Edwin Black Show, broadcasts on IBC-TV.