Profile

  • Website: http://www.codepink.org/
  • Founded in November 2002 by “Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Diane Wilson, Starhawk and about 100 other women,” who “set up a 4-month all-day vigil in front of the White House… to stand for peace” and “stop the United States from invading Iraq.”
  • Describes itself as “a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.”
  • According to its website, “The CODEPINK alert is a feisty call for people to ‘wage peace.’”

Funding

  • Total revenue of $437,708 for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.
  • Donors and funding sources unavailable, reflecting a lack of transparency and accountability.
  • Co-founder Benjamin is also president of the Benjamin Fund, which, according to 2012 Form 990, has assets totaling approximately $12 million. In 2012, the Benjamin Fund donated $100,000 to CODEPINK. In 2012, it also provided funds to other highly biased and politicized NGOs including, Global Exchange ($175,000), Jewish Voice for Peace ($2,500), National Lawyers Guild Foundation ($2,500), Christian Peacemakers ($2,000), Mondoweiss ($2,700), and others.
  • CODEPINK “doesn’t have members” or “require official affiliation.” Rather, it maintains: “Just using the word member implies that there is an established organization and accepted code of behavior to which you have to pledge in order to be included as one of the privileged few.”
  • Partners with other highly biased and politicized NGOs including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which views itself as the “Jewish wing” of the Palestinian solidarity movement and seeks to create “a wedge” within the Jewish community over support for Israel. It is also a member of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Political Advocacy

  • Leader of U.S.-based anti-Israel boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) campaigns. Regularly presents an entirely biased and distorted view of the conflict, completely omitting Hamas terror against Israeli civilians.
  • States that CODEPINK “stands in solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli nonviolent activists and human rights advocates working to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and to promote the rights of Palestinians. In addition, we work here in the United States to educate Americans about the realities of Israel’s occupation and to change U.S. foreign policy in the region. We feel personally implicated in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law because our tax dollars – $3 billion annually in military aid- subsidize Israel’s occupation.”
  • In 2009, launched the campaign “Stolen Beauty,” aiming to boycott Ahava beauty products and “expose the ugly secrets from the Dead Sea.” The campaign alleges that “Ahava is putting a pretty face on its crimes” and “hiding the ugly truth– its products actually come from stolen Palestinian natural resources in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank… when you buy Ahava products you help finance the destruction of hope for a peaceful and just future for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
  • In 2014, launched a “Boycott Sodastream” campaign, alleging that “SodaStream enjoys cheap land and water, confiscated from the indigenous Palestinian owners; a captive Palestinian labor force; tax benefits; and lax regulation of environmental and labor protection laws.” The campaign called on supporters to “Send a letter telling Scarlet Johansson to drop SodaStream” and “Send letters to SodaStream retailers.” It also publicized a video, “BDS Brides Boycott SodaStream and Ahava Sales at Bed Bath & Beyond,” as well as downloadable “Slogans & Chants for Protesting SodaStream.” The campaign ignores that SodaStream employed hundreds of Palestinians who will lose their jobs when the company leaves the West Bank.
  • COPEPINK, together with Global Exchange, Interfaith Peace-builders, and other highly biased and politicized groups, launched a campaign to “End US Military Aid to Israel,” urging followers to “stop funding weapons to Israel.”
  • Promotes the Move Over AIPAC campaign, which seeks to build “opposition to US military aid to Israel” and “energize local movements that educate and organize their communities around the issues of how their tax dollars, resources, and policy makers are used to maintain injustice, war, and occupation in the Middle East instead of rebuilding the United States.”
  • Filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee in August 2011 “in response to a right-wing junket in which 81 Congresspeople visited Israel with an AIPAC affiliate.” Co-founder Medea Benjamin, who filed the complaint, alleged that “AIPAC puts the interests of Israel before U.S. interests, which makes these Congressional junkets dangerous and downright un-American.”
  • Medea Benjamin participated in the New Horizon 2nd Annual International Conference of Independent Thinkers & Film Makers, held in Tehran, Iran (September 27 – October 1, 2014), speaking on the topics of “The Gaza War & BDS Movement Strategies against the Zionist Regime” and “Different Facets of the Resistance.” The conference included past and present Iranian government officials, as well as conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers.
  • In 2011, a CODEPINK delegation participated in “Freedom Flotillas,” aimed at breaching Israel’s borders and the blockade on Gaza, and initiating confrontations with Israeli naval forces.
  • Co-sponsor of the “Kids have the right to read about Palestine” campaign, which calls on publishers of children’s books, such as Scholastic and Marshall Cavendish, to “add the title PALESTINE to their series.” The campaign was endorsed by prominent BDS activists Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and others.
  • Initiated a petition, “Women Say No War on Iran,” to be delivered to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and First Lady Michelle Obama, “to oppose the inflammatory rhetoric of war and the recently publicized plan of the Israeli government to attack Iran… On moral and economic grounds, we also oppose any US intervention to support an Israeli attack on Iran… We cry out for diplomacy, not bombing, to ensure security and peace.” The petition completely omits the Iranian regime’s persistent calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.