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A Most Loyal Friend: Robert Kraft's Donations, in His Own Filings
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the Israeli Influence on the United States hub.
“A most loyal friend.”
Robert Kraft says he's spent 'decades' supporting the Palestinian people. His charity's filings tell a lopsided story: hundreds of thousands to Friends of the IDF, a $20M anti-BDS foundation, and $3M to AIPAC's super PAC. Netanyahu: 'Israel does not have a more loyal friend than Robert Kraft.'
The donations are FACT — they're in the filings. Whether Kraft's 'I help Palestinians' framing squares with that record is the judgment call, graded PROBABLY TRUE as a documented mismatch.
Hard guardrail: this is about a gap between words and money, NOT about a Jewish American's right to fund Israeli causes (legal and his). FIDF funds soldier welfare, not weapons. His real coexistence giving is carried, not erased.
Kraft publicly casts himself as a decades-long supporter of Palestinians — and has funded some real coexistence work.
After pressuring Ed Sheeran to drop Macklemore over 'Free Palestine' remarks and being challenged to match a $1M donation, Kraft pledged $2M 'to aid in the region' and said 'for decades' he's 'supported efforts that create opportunity for Palestinians' — building businesses, jobs, and relationships between Israelis and Palestinians; he named no recipient for the $2M. Part of this is genuine: he's backed Seeds of Peace and gave a $1M leadership gift to Our Generation Speaks, working toward 'a more peaceful Israeli-Palestinian future.'
His foundation's filings show hundreds of thousands to Friends of the IDF and Israeli military causes.
Per The Intercept's analysis of Kraft Family Foundation tax forms since 2006: $196,000 to Friends of the IDF across seven gifts, each earmarked to 'promote education for young Jewish soldiers,' plus $123,000 to Brothers for Life and Friends of Israel Disabled Veterans. Precise: FIDF funds soldier welfare — education, health, well-being, its 'lone soldier' program (>$20M since 2020, continuing through the Gaza war) — not weapons. Kraft has also organized trips for NFL figures, including a 2017 FIDF-organized delegation visit to an Israeli Air Force base.
He founded a $20M anti-BDS foundation and funded pro-Israel advocacy groups critics call Islamophobic.
In 2019 Kraft pledged $20M to found the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (now Blue Square Alliance Against Hate), saying it would oppose the Palestinian-led BDS movement; Netanyahu, giving Kraft an award, said 'Israel does not have a more loyal friend than Robert Kraft.' The foundation also gave $63,500 to CAMERA, $50,000 (2011–12) to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, and $150,000 (2008–18) to MEMRI (co-founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer). Characterizations attributed, not asserted: CAIR calls the Investigative Project part of a 'U.S. Islamophobia Network'; journalists/scholars accuse CAMERA of pressure campaigns and MEMRI of selective translations.
Through his company, Kraft has given $3 million to AIPAC's super PAC.
Separate from the foundation's grants, Kraft has given $3M since 2022 through the Kraft Group to the United Democracy Project — AIPAC's super PAC — including $1M this cycle. The UDP spends heavily to defeat candidates who criticize Israel's conduct in Gaza and U.S. military support for Israel, helping make several primaries among the most expensive on record. That puts Kraft's money inside the machinery that punishes American politicians who dissent on Israel.
The 'I help Palestinians' image is belied by the direction and scale of the documented giving.
A judgment about proportion, so graded as an argued reading. Kraft presents himself — in a PR moment built to deflect a 'Free Palestine' controversy — as a decades-long friend of the Palestinians, while his filings show a record aimed overwhelmingly the other way: the Israeli military's soldiers, a $20M anti-BDS foundation, pro-Israel advocacy, and $3M to the lobby's super PAC that works to unseat Israel's critics. The coexistence gifts are real and counted, but they are the smaller, quieter part of the portfolio, and the headline $2M came with no named recipient. The record doesn't match the framing.
He used his leverage to silence Palestine speech that wasn't antisemitic — the conflation, in action.
In September 2026 Kraft pressured Ed Sheeran to drop Macklemore from his U.S. stadium tour over Macklemore's on-stage 'Free Palestine' calls; Sheeran did, and every other opening act plus his backing band (Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe, Beoga) quit in solidarity. Macklemore's remarks were not antisemitic — he told 'my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.' Precision that corrects a common misfire: Kraft did NOT ignore real antisemitism — his Foundation to Combat Antisemitism aired its first national ad (Oct 2022) specifically in response to Kanye West's antisemitism. That's why the accurate charge is CONFLATION, not hypocrisy-about-Kanye: the same apparatus that rightly named Kanye's anti-Jewish hate also moves to silence explicitly non-antisemitic Palestine solidarity — collapsing the line between hatred of Jews and criticism of a state.
Reputation is the last thing money buys.
The same fortune works on several levels: funding soldiers, funding the advocacy groups that shape how the conflict is covered, and funding the super PAC that decides which American politicians survive a vote on Israel — while the public face is a friend to both sides. The coexistence branding isn't a lie so much as a softening agent: it makes the harder spending easier to wave through and buys the benefit of the doubt when a 'Free Palestine' row threatens the brand. It connects to The Fake Middle on Israel (the same United Democracy Project spending to keep the 'electable' line right of the voters) and The $2.8 Billion Bomb Sale (the public-money end of the same alliance). Support for Israel in American life is not only official and military but private and reputational — and the private end works best in the costume of the peacemaker. We imply no dual loyalty; funding Israel is legal and his right. The story is the gap between the claim and the filing.