Prince Harry & Meghan Markle Cut Funding to Muslim Charity Over Anti-Israel Op-Ed

Prince Har­ry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foun­da­tion has ter­mi­nat­ed its finan­cial sup­port for the Mil­wau­kee Mus­lim Wom­en’s Coali­tion (MMWC) fol­low­ing con­cerns over an op-ed writ­ten by the coali­tion’s founder, Janan Najeeb. The arti­cle, pub­lished in the Mil­wau­kee Jour­nal Sen­tinel, includ­ed the phrase “from the riv­er to the sea, Pales­tine will be free,” which Archewell inter­pret­ed as con­flict­ing with its val­ues.

Background of the Funding

The Archewell Foun­da­tion had pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed MMWC a grant of near­ly $30,000 to sup­port its Afghan Wom­en’s Sewing Cir­cle pro­gram, aimed at assist­ing Afghan refugee women in Mil­wau­kee. ​

Archewell’s Statement

In a state­ment, Archewell empha­sized its com­mit­ment to inclu­siv­i­ty and sup­port for diverse com­mu­ni­ties but clar­i­fied its stance against hate speech and sym­bols. The foun­da­tion stat­ed:​

“We do not tol­er­ate any form of hate speech, includ­ing hate-fueled sym­bols, lan­guage, or imagery—no mat­ter the com­mu­ni­ty it tar­gets.” ​Red­dit

Archewell also reit­er­at­ed its ongo­ing sup­port for Mus­lim-led orga­ni­za­tions and refugee pro­grams, high­light­ing part­ner­ships with groups like Human­i­ty Crew. ​

Response from MMWC

Janan Najeeb expressed dis­ap­point­ment over the foun­da­tion’s deci­sion, defend­ing her op-ed as a legit­i­mate cri­tique and not an expres­sion of hate. She stat­ed:

“I make no apol­o­gy for stand­ing up for human rights and speak­ing out against dehu­man­iza­tion of all peo­ple, includ­ing Pales­tini­ans.” ​The Dai­ly Beast

Najeeb also crit­i­cized the foun­da­tion’s move as coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to sup­port­ing war sur­vivors. ​The Dai­ly Beast+2People.com+2TMJ4+2

Community Support

Fol­low­ing the with­draw­al of fund­ing, MMWC received an out­pour­ing of sup­port from the com­mu­ni­ty. A crowd­fund­ing cam­paign was launched, sur­pass­ing the amount pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed by Archewell with­in 24 hours. ​People.comTMJ4+1People.com+1

This inci­dent under­scores the com­plex­i­ties orga­ni­za­tions face when align­ing phil­an­thropic efforts with their core val­ues, espe­cial­ly in con­texts involv­ing sen­si­tive geopo­lit­i­cal issues.