Gatestone Institute

The Gatestone Institute publishes articles by a number of prominent right wing, neoconservative, Zionist and counter-jihad individuals and organisations and promotes them at exclusive speaking events, often in New York City.
==History==
The Gatestone Institute has been publishing articles on its website since October 2008.Archives, Gatestone Institute, accessed 6 February 2013 It has been hosting events since June 2010.
==Activities==
The Gatestone Institute describes itself as a think tank ‘dedicated to educating the public about what the mainstream media fails to report in promoting: institutions of democracy and the rule of law; human rights; a free and strong economy; a military capable of ensuring peace at home and in the free world; energy independence; ensuring the public stay informed of threats to our individual liberty, sovereignty and free speech’. About, Gatestone Institute, accessed 6 February 2013
Its website also states that it ‘will be publishing books’ and currently conducts ‘national and international conferences, briefings and events for its members and others, with world leaders, journalists and experts -- analyzing, strategizing, and keeping them informed on current issues, and where possible recommending solutions’.
Themes include ‘military and diplomatic threats to the United States and our allies; events in the Middle East and their possible consequences, and the transparency and accountability of international organizations’. 
===Promoting anti-Muslim writers===
Gatestone publishes a number of prominent writers from the anti-Muslim counterjihad movement. These include Fjordman, a far-right blogger ‘idolised’ by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik,Jerome Taylor, Unmasked: the far right blogger idolised by Breivik, The Independent, 6 August 2011 Bat Ye’or whose ‘Eurabia’ conspiracy theory is advocated by Fjordman, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer and Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Spencer and his Jihad Watch were cited 116 times by Breivik, Pipes and his Middle East Watch 18 times.
Gatestone has also published a defence of Wilders' call for there to be 'fewer Moroccans' in the Netherlands and articles attempting to demonise Islam by linking it to cannibalism (eg. ‘Islamic cannibalism’ by Ali Salim) and to child abuse (eg. ‘child sex slavery, multiculturalism and Islam’ by Soeren Kern.
The relationship with Wilders is a close one, as reporter Max Blumenthal noted in 2012:
:At the April event, Wilders's seamless fusion of anti-Muslim bombast and pro-Israel cant was gratefully received by the Gatestone Institute’s founder and director, Nina Rosenwald, whom he acknowledged at the top of his jeremiad as another of his good friends. An heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune, Rosenwald spreads her millions through the William Rosenwald Family Fund, a nonprofit foundation named for her father, a famed Jewish philanthropist who created the United Jewish Appeal in 1939. His daughter’s focus is more explicitly political. According to a report by the Center for American Progress titled “Fear Inc.,” Rosenwald and her sister Elizabeth Varet, who also directs the family foundation, have donated more than $2.8 million since 2000 to “organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia.”Besides funding a Who’s Who of anti-Muslim outfits, Rosenwald has served on the board of AIPAC, the central arm of America’s Israel lobby, and holds leadership roles in a host of mainstream pro-Israel organizations. As groups like AIPAC lead the charge for a US military strike on the Islamic Republic of Iran, threatening to turn apocalyptic visions of civilizational warfare into catastrophic reality, Rosenwald's wealth has fueled a rapidly emerging alliance between the pro-Israel mainstream and the Islamophobic fringe. (In 2003 alone the Rosenwald Family Fund donated well over half of its $1.6 million in total contributions to pro-Israel and Islamophobic organizations.) This alliance serves to sanitize and legitimize professional anti-Muslim bigots like Wilders, allowing their ideas to mingle easily with those of neoconservative foreign policy heavyweights intent on promoting the appearance of a convergence between US and Israeli interests by invoking the specter of a common “Islamofascist” enemy. With Gatestone—which publicizes the writings of figures ranging from pro-Israel super-lawyer Alan Dershowitz to “counter-jihad” propagandist Robert Spencer, and boasts Harold Rhode, a neoconservative former Pentagon official credited, as a senior fellow, with helping to try to push the Bush administration to invade Iraq—Rosenwald has attempted to shift the alliance into overdrive.Max Blumenthal, The Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate, The Nation, 13 June 2012.
====Fees====
A UK-based policy analyst, interviewed on condition of anonymity, claimed that a separate UK-based Muslim writer on Gatestone’s books was being paid $65,000 a year in return for producing articles 'on demand'.Hilary Aked, One of America's Most Dangerous Think Tanks is Spreading Hate Across the Atlantic, Alternet, 23 November 2015
Gatestone's tax filings reveal that it paid its 'head writer' Soeren Kern $125,859 in 2015 and $130,000 in 2016. Gatestone Forms 990, 2015, 2016 
===Promoting Eurabia conspiracy theory===
Gatestone serves as a 'a clearing house...for claims about Muslim "no-go zones" (the likes of which "terrorism expert" Steven Emerson was ridiculed for)' and has published articles promoting the idea of 'Islamisation' and in particular the Eurabia conspiracy of an Islamic takeover of Europe. It has published articles with titles like:
*‘The Islamization of France’
*‘The Islamization of Germany’
*‘The Islamization of Belgium and the Netherlands’
*‘Spain: Soon the Muslims will be Kings of the World’
*‘Britain’s Islamic Future’
*‘UK Islamic takeover plot’
*‘How Islam Conquers Europe’.Hilary Aked, Is Notorious Islamophobic Think Tanks Inspiring More Far-Right Terrorism?, Alternet, 26 August 2015.
===Events===
Events organised by the ‘Gatestone Institute Briefing Council’ are ‘by invitation only’ and exclusively for members. According to its website, Gatestone events ‘often take place at The Four Seasons Restaurant, The '21' Club, The Knickerbocker Club, The River Club and select private residences in New York City’.
It was previously advertised that a minimum donation of $10,000 is ‘required for participation’.
Previous speakers have included Daniel Pipes, Henry Kissinger, John Bolton, Frank Luntz, Bruce Bawer, Alan Dershowitz, Geert Wilders, Douglas Murray and M. Zuhdi Jasser.
The 2015 accounts show that John Bolton was paid $100,000 as an event speaker, though it is unclear whether this was for a single or multiple events - he only gave one publicised talk in that year. Gatestone Institute, Form 990, 2015, reviewed by Spinwatch 
British speakers have included the Henry Jackson Society's associate director Douglas Murray on his book 'The Strange Death of Europe' in November 2017 and the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks on 'Identity, Politics and Populism'. Gatestone briefing council Events, Gatestone Institute, n.d, accessed 16 March 2018 
===Gatestone Europe===
Gatestone has a European 'advisory board' run by journalist Amir Taheri and Elisabeth-Ann Moutet. The Institute declares in its accounts that the majority of its overseas expenditure on 'programme services' occurs in Europe.
 
In January 2017 Gatestone set up a new Twitter account, 'Gatestone Europe', with the description: Gatestone Europe 'Daily European news from a decent right-wing perspective'. The account remains protected and is therefore only accessible by approved followers. The twitter account also provides a link to gatestone.eu, however this defaults to Gatestone.
===British links===
====Quilliam Foundation====
Hilary Aked writes:
:In January 2015, just days after the Paris attacks targeting magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket, Gatestone spent approximately $100,000 taking out a full page advert in the New York Times. To drive home its implicit message that a 'good Muslim' supports US power, two out of the three Muslims pictured in the Gatestone advert were posing next to the American flag. Mentioning violence in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Egypt – and, 'Africa' - the text of the advertisement effortlessly ignored all other violence in the world not involving any of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims and simultaneously glossed over the context-specific political factors at play in each conflict. The subtext was very clear: Gatestone was advocating a mono-causal explanation for this violence and put the spotlight firmly on Islam.
:Ostensibly a 'counter-extremism' initiative, this advert was typical of how contemporary anti-Muslim racism is articulated: by generalizing specific behaviours and attributing them deterministically to religious ideology. This fundamental problem of collectively imputing blame is not negated by the fact that all 23 signatories were Muslims. Though the statement calls on 'all people of conscience' to sign up, since the word 'duty' is twice used in relation to Muslims it is clear that they, far more than others, are expected to prove they reject violence. Thus the Gatestone declaration serves the same function as the so-called 'Charter of Muslim Understanding', which similarly called for Muslims to be required to make special denunciations. Commissioned by UKIP’s Gerard Batten, that document was called 'frightening' even by pro-Israel Tory MP Robert Halfon, who compared it to a first step towards wearing a yellow star, as Jews were required to do under Nazi rule.
Usama Hasan and Maajid Nawaz of the UK-based Quilliam Foundation were among the signatories to this statement.
====Henry Jackson Society====
In 2011, the British neoconservative think tank the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) received $10,000 from the Abstraction Fund, the private mega-foundation of Nina Rosenwald who set up the Gatestone Institute. In addition, HJS associate director Douglas Murray writes regularly for Gatestone and at the time was listed as a 'distinguished senior fellow'.
The connection between HJS and Rosenwald also means that Student Rights, the campus-monitoring arm of the HJS, may be receiving funding from the same financial sources as Campus Watch - part of the Middle East Forum also funded by Rosenwald's Abstraction Fund - a group that pioneered the McCarthyist blacklisting tactics it employs.
===Grants and Expenditures===
====2016====
Grants/gifts received: $2,190,243 
Total programme service expenses: $1,631,025
According to the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS) tax filing for the 2016 financial year, Gatestone 'activities conducted in various regions includes research and writing, hosting conferences, translating and maintaining the organization's website and blog to inform the public and the policy community about issues related to human rights and democracy worldwide.' 
Overseas expenditures included:
*Europe(Including Iceland and Greenland): $362,847 (26 employees): cited purpose was Program Services. No offices.
*ME and North Africa: $262,550 (14 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*North America: $12,258 (5 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*East Asia and the Pacific: $6260 (2 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*South America: $12157 (1 employee): cited purpose was Program Services
*South Asia: $7500 (4 employees): cited purpose was Program Services 
::Total programme employees = 52 
======Fees======
*Consulting fees included writers' total fees:$312,694
*Other fees: $19,628
*Article translation fees: $162,671
*Speakers fees: $255,250
Media consulting fees: 
 Gatestone Institute, IRS Form 990, 2016 and [Raw data which includes Schedule F information https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/201711329349305646_public.xml] published at Propublica 
====2015====
Grants/gifts received: $2,190,242
Total programme service expenses: $1,788,828
Overseas expenditures included: 
*Europe: $397,072 (32 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*ME and North Africa: $193,358 (9 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*East Asia and the Pacific: $5270 (1 employee): cited purpose was Program Services
*South America: $13,255 (3 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*South Asia: $2700 (3 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
The Institute's 2015 tax filings state that no overseas grants were made in this period.
Writers' total fees: $240,249
Other fees: $29,313
Article translation fees: $145,282
Speakers fees: $278816
Media consulting fees: 25,250
====2014====
Grants/gifts received: $2,142,026
Overseas expenditures included: 
*Europe: $325,528 (23 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*ME and North Africa: $121,530 (6 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*Sub-Saharan Africa: $21,000 (4 employees): cited purpose was Program Services
*North America: $17,977 (1 employee): cited purpose was Program Services
*South America: $1,090 (0 employee): cited purpose was Program Services
*South Asia: $600 (1 employee): cited purpose was Program Services
Gatestone grant expenditures amounted to $20,000, distributed as follows: 
*European region: $10,000 (overseas grants do not have to be registered in detail)
*The Humanitarian Aid Relief Fund: $10,000 - purpose cited was 'to support Its charitable aId work In the spheres of education & human rights' Gatestone Institute, Form 990, 2014 
====2013====
==Funding==
The Gatestone Institute states that it is funded by ‘private donors and foundations’ but does not appear to publish any further details on its website. Donors gleaned from a range of sources are as outlined below.
===2016===
Gatestone's revenue was $$2,190,243 in 2016. Gatestone Institute, Form 990, 2016 Donors included:
*Mercer Family Foundation: $100,000 ) Mercer Family Foundation Form 990, 2016, reviewed February 2018 (Rebekah Mercer was listed on Gatestone's website as being a member of its board of governors in March/April 2017).
===2015===
Gatestone's revenue was $$2,192,189 in 2015 Gatestone Institute, Form 990, 2015 
Donors included:
*Mercer Family Foundation: $50,000 Mercer Family Foundation Form 990, 2015, reviewed by Spinwatch 
===2014===
Gatestone's revenue was $2,154,147 in 2014, a significant increase on the previous year. Gatestone Institute, Form 990, 2014 . A review of various affiliated organisations' tax filings revealed grants from:
*Abstraction Fund: $1,015,000 Abstraction Fund, 990 Form, 2014 
*Chisholm Foundation: $20,000 Chisholm Foundation, 990 Form, 2014 
*College for National Studies: $50,000 in 2014
*Jewish Communal Fund: $55,136 Jewish Communal Fund, 990 Form, 2014 
*Mercer Family Foundation: $50,000 Mercer Family Foundation Form 990, 2014, reviewed by Spinwatch 
*Middle East Forum: $13,500 Middle East Forum, Form 990, 2014 
===2013===
====Middle East Forum====
In its 2013 tax filing Gatestone declared a total of US $1,387,104 in income Gatestone Institute 2013 Tax return, accessed 27 February 2015 , which appears to have come from one source according to IRS filings for the anti-Muslim Middle East Forum (MEF). 
In fact MEF has given over USD$2.3 million to Gatestone in recent years. The 2013 filing shows it gave one single grant of USD$1,383,471 to Gatestone, an increase on the previous year's USD $1,098,878 grant. MEF, Form 990, 2013, reviewed by Spinwatch Gatestone Institute, Conservative Transparency database, accessed 3 March 2015 
====Abstraction Fund====
According to IRS filings from 2014, the Abstraction Fund also donated a total of USD $1,015,000 to the Gatestone Institute, in 9 separate donations. Form 990 2014, Foundation Center, accessed 21 January 2016
====Others====
In 2013 the Svetlana and Herbert M Wachtell Foundation gave Gatestone USD$5,000. Svetlana and Herbert M Wachtell Foundation, 990 Form, 2013 
===2012===
Gatestone’s revenue was reportedly $1.1 million in 2012.
==People==
As well as considerable resources, people associated with Gatestone include a combination of far-right bloggers like Fjordman alongside prestigious names like former U.S. ambassador John Bolton (chairman of Gatestone) and James Woolsey, former director of the CIA (Gatestone advisory board member). The presence of such individuals – who have the ability to lend mainstream respectability to vehemently Islamophobic ideas – is something few counterjihad think tanks can boast.
It has been argued that this combination lends it 'faux respectability' and 'establishment kudos' that translates into the potential for 'an alarming degree of mainstream influence' that should give 'more to fear' than 'the danger posed by lone far-right terrorists like Breivik'.
===Chairman===
Ambassador John R. BoltonAbout, Gatestone Institute, accessed 17 December 2015
===Directors===
Nina Rosenwald - director/ president | Georgette Gelbard - director | Grayson Levy - director | Erik Telford - director | Naomi Perlman - secretary/PR manager| Joel Zbar Gatestone Institute 2013 Tax return, accessed 27 February 2015 
===Board of governors===
====2015====
Viscountess Bearsted | Baroness Caroline Cox | Alan Dershowitz | Lawrence Kadish | Lord Finkelstein | Jack Fowler | Ingeborg Rennert | Rebecca Sugar | Professor Robert Immerman | Meryl Tisch Gatestone Institute website, accessed 2 December 2015 
===2014-15===
R. James Woolsey – Chairman | Georgette Gelbard | M. Zuhdi Jasser | Lawrence Kadish | Douglas Murray | Naomi Perlman | Ingeborg Rennert | Rebecca Sugar | Amir Taheri | Professor Elie Wiesel | Christine Williams
===Board of Governors Gatestone Europe===
Amir Taheri - Chairman | Anne-Elisabeth Moutet
===Distinguished scholars and senior advisers===
Soeren Kern | Guy Milliere | Harold Rhode | Khaled Abu Toameh | Samuel Westrop
====Prominent early role for Fjordman====
In the institute's early days, mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's blogger-idol Fjordman was listed as a 'distinguished scholar' (in January 2013), indicating the importance of his ideas. His name was later removed from this list.
====Other former distinguished fellows====
*British journalist Robert Ellis
===Columnists===
Writers listed as columnists include:
	
 
 Irfan Al-Alawi
 Sami Alrabaa
 Benny Avni
 Shmuel Bar
 
 
 Zeyno Baran
 Bruce Bawer
 Anne Bayefsky
 Elias Bejjani
 
 
 Paul Belien
 Anat Berko
 Claire Berlinski
 Sushantha Kumar Bhattacharya
 
 
 John R. Bolton
 Andrew Bostom
 Joseph Bottum
 Shoshana Bryen
 
 
 Stephen Bryen
 Yigal Carmon
 Aidan Clay
 Marc Cogen
 
 
 Alexandra Colen
 Valentina Colombo
 Irwin Cotler
 Nonie Darwish
 
 
 Simon Deng
 Alan M. Dershowitz
 Dan Diker
Arieh Eldad
 
 
 Steve Emerson
 Manda Zand Ervin
 Douglas Feith
 Oleksandr Feldman
 
 
 Fjordman
 Lawrence Anthony Franklin
 Ronnie Fraser
 Farid Ghadry
 
 
 Dore Gold
 Brooke Goldstein
 Daniel Greenfield
 Lars Hedegaard
 
 
 Tarek Heggy
 Gunnar Heinsohn
 Eli E. Hertz
 David Horowitz
 
 
 Peter Huessy
 Raymond Ibrahim
 Youssef Ibrahim
 Amil Imani
 
 
Jeffrey Imm
 M. Zuhdi Jasser
 Avi Jorisch
 Lee Kaplan
 
 
Philippe Karsenty
 Efraim Karsh
 Joe Kaufman
 Mordechai Kedar
 
 
Soeren Kern
 David Keyes
 Mehdi Khalaji
 M. A. Khan
 
 
 Martin Kramer
 Rita Kramer
 Bernard Lewis
 Herbert I. London
 
 
 Denis MacEoin
 Shiraz Maher
 Itamar Marcus
 Evelyn Markus
 
 
 Ryan Mauro
 Andrew McCarthy
 Betsy McCaughey
 Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens
 
 Alan Mendoza
 Morten Messerschmidt
 Aaron Eitan Meyer
 Guy Milliere
 
 
 Anne-Elisabeth Moutet
 Douglas Murray
 Taslima Nasreen
 Fiamma Nirenstein
 
 Daniel Pipes
 Center for Islamic Pluralism
 Justin Polin
 Noah Pollak
 
 
 Nidra Poller
 Raheel Raza
 Kamal Richa
 Asaf Romirowsky
 
 Steven J. Rosen
 Barry Rubin
 Michael Rubin
 Jonathan Schanzer
 
 
 Steve Schippert
 Stephen Schwartz
 Roger Scruton
 Natan Sharansky
 
 Nina Shea
 Mark Silverberg
 Henry Jackson Society
 Robert Spencer
 
 
 Gerald M. Steinberg
 Cinnamon Stillwell
 Amir Taheri
 Tiberge
 
 Khaled Abu Toameh
 Michael J. Totten
 Diana West
 Sam Westrop
 
 
 Geert Wilders
 Moshe Ya'alon
 Bat Ye'or
 Ben-Dror Yemini
 
==Contact==
:Website: www.gatestoneinstitute.org
:Email: info@gatestoneinstitute.org
:Twitter:
:Twitter: @GatestoneEurope - a protected account set up January 2017 with 587 followers as of 16 March 2017.
==Resources==
*Max Blumenthal, The Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate, The Nation.
*Nafeez Ahmed, White Supremacists at the Heart of Whitehall, Middle East Eye.
*Nafeez Ahmed, David Cameron confidant promotes forced depopulation of Muslims in Europe, Media Diversified. 
*Hilary Aked, Is Notorious Islamophobic Think Tanks Inspiring More Far-Right Terrorism?, Alternet.
*Hilary Aked, One of America's Most Dangerous Think Tanks is Spreading Hate Across the Atlantic, Alternet. November 23, 2015.
==Notes==
Category:Israel Lobby
Category:Neocons
Category:Think Tanks
Category:Islam Critics
Category:Counterjihad Category:Zionist movement USCategory:Zionist movement