Revealed: CIA-Linked Analyst Oversaw Palestine Solidarity Campaign Membership Files

For three years, a woman with a background in U.S. State Department cultural diplomacy and ties to intelligence-linked organizations quietly managed the membership database of Britain’s largest pro-Palestine organization.

Her name is Deborah Fiorin. Hired by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in early 2018 as its Membership and Data Officer, Fiorin held unprecedented access to the personal information of thousands of activists across the United Kingdom. Yet her prior work history, which includes a stint at a State Department propaganda arm and brief postings at firms with deep intelligence connections, raises serious questions about vetting, oversight, and the very integrity of the campaign’s leadership.

This investigation examines who Fiorin really is, how she came to hold such a sensitive post, and what her story reveals about the governance of PSC.

Ben Soffa, national secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), has developed software to monitor and organize the group’s members. He owns a small company called Organic Campaigns and describes himself on LinkedIn as a “developer of online campaigning tools.” As national secretary, Soffa has access to PSC’s membership data and likely worked closely with whoever oversaw the database.

As revealed in my previous article, Soffa admitted to having “limited” contact with Assaf Kaplan, the former Israeli military intelligence officer who was controversially hired by the Labour Party as head of digital operations. It remains unclear whether Soffa shared PSC member data with his Labour colleague, but the question demands scrutiny.

A more pressing concern, however, is how PSC member data may have been used.

PSC claims to take data protection seriously. According to its official privacy policy, the organization collaborates with IT contractors, website managers, and database administrators to ensure that security features are regularly updated and that personal data is handled responsibly.

The policy states that outdated or irrelevant information should be deleted and that data should be retained only as long as necessary. If an individual requests to sever ties with the organization, their record should be marked as inactive, accompanied by a note explaining why they should no longer be contacted, such as the cancellation of their membership. The full policy is available here.

However, this investigation raises serious questions about whether PSC directors, including National Director Ben Jamal, have been willing or able to enforce the group’s data protection policy.

Concerns began with PSC’s hiring of a new staff member in January 2018, a year into Ben Jamal’s tenure as national director. Although he had previously served as a PSC director from January 2014 to July 2016, this was his first full year in the lead role. The new “Membership and Data Officer,” Deborah Fiorin, remained in post for just over three years, departing in January 2021.

 

Meet Deborah Fiorin

A 2016 biographical note published before she joined PSC states she was “born in Italy, educated in the U.S., France, Italy and Britain.” It notes that she holds two bachelor’s degrees, one in international relations and one in philosophy, as well as an MA in International Studies and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.

On LinkedIn, she claims native or bilingual fluency in English and Italian, as well as full professional proficiency in French, and elementary proficiency in German.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Deborah Fiorin earned an MA in International Studies and Diplomacy from SOAS, University of London, in 2015.

She previously studied international politics and economics at Sciences Po in Paris through the Erasmus program, and holds two bachelor’s degrees: one in philosophy from Birkbeck, University of London, and another in international relations and human rights from the University of Padua.

 

State Department official

After completing her master’s at SOAS in the summer of 2015, Fiorin appears to have a gap in her CV. Her next listed role doesn’t begin until March 2016. What did she do in the interim? Her LinkedIn profile offers no clues. However, a biographical note from March 2016 states that “she has worked for… the U.S. Department of Cultural Affairs in New York City.” This position is not referenced anywhere on her LinkedIn profile. But what is the U.S. Department of Cultural Affairs?

There is no “Department of Cultural Affairs” under the U.S. State Department. However, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, based in New York, performs a similar function. It promotes “mutual understanding” between the United States and other nations and has long sponsored cultural exchange programs advancing U.S. foreign policy interests, including the Fulbright Program and the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), which marked its 70th anniversary in 2010.

As it happens, the bureau has deep roots in U.S. propaganda operations, tracing its origins to the Office of War Information during World War II. Its legacy also includes links to CIA-backed initiatives, such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the U.S. Information Agency, which oversaw Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

According to the Foreign Service Journal, a publication offering an “insider perspective” for U.S. foreign service officials, the bureau sits within a tradition of CIA-sponsored covert action and soft power projection:

While Secretary of State George Marshall was telling Congress there would be no more government funding of exhibitions of modern art, the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had already embraced the idea. American avant-garde art demonstrated America’s creativity, cultural sophistication, and, especially, intellectual freedom, the CIA believed. And it would be hard for Soviet modernism, called socialist realism, to compete, given the rigidity of communist ideology. The CIA began covertly funding an initiative centered on a nongovernmental organization called the Congress for Cultural Freedom to promote the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, and others. The CIA operation grew, establishing offices in 35 countries and subsidizing international tours by American jazz artists, symphony orchestras, and more until its exposure in 1967.

Meanwhile, in 1953, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) was created to “tell America’s story to the world.” By engaging with the world through international information, broadcasting, culture, and exchange programs, USIA made cultural diplomacy an essential element of American foreign policy. Until its 1999 absorption into the State Department, USIA’s “Arts America” program was instrumental in bringing unique American achievements in music, painting, literature, and architecture, as well as industrial arts, to the rest of the world.

And its successor, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, has continued the tradition.”

Fiorin, in other words, worked within a U.S. propaganda outfit with documented links to the CIA. This may shed light on a curious line in the March 2016 biographical note, which claims she “has written extensively on Libya, its politics and the 2011 revolution.”

Yet a search for “Deborah Fiorin” and “Libya” yields only that biography—no articles, essays or publications. Where did she “write” extensively on Libya? Was this work conducted during her tenure with a CIA-linked organization, possibly under a nondisclosure agreement? Or does it refer to student essays that were never published? Either way, the claim appears questionable and raises further concerns about how she was vetted by the PSC.

 

Fair Observer?

What is Fair Observer, the outlet where Fiorin published an article in March 2016, the same month she began her next job? Among its listed “partners” is Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, a group with documented ties to the Zionist-funded Henry Jackson Society. The organization itself is backed by a range of establishment funders, including the U.S. government, NATO, and the International Rescue Committee, an organization originally set up as a CIA front in 1942.

Fair Observer also receives funding from major corporate and philanthropic sources, including Fidelity Charitable, J.P. Morgan Chase, the American Express Foundation, and the Sunrise Project.

Its former chair, Gary Grappo, is a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service who served as envoy and head of mission to the Office of the Quartet Representative, led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Jerusalem. Grappo also served as Minister Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman, and Deputy Chief of Mission in Riyadh.

 

Fiorin’s British Intelligence Connection

After what appears to have been nine months with the U.S. government, Fiorin accepted a new position as a “political analyst” at Protection Group International Limited in London. She worked there from March to May 2016, her first direct professional link to British, rather than U.S., intelligence networks.

Prior to Fiorin’s employment there, the company had a different name: Protection and Intelligence Group, which was a clue to its activities. Among those who worked there before her was David Charters (January 10, 2013 – August 30, 2014), who describes his career as beginning in the U.K. Foreign Office, which he joined after graduating from Cambridge with first-class honors in modern languages.

It’s exactly the kind of career trajectory one would expect from a member of MI6, and indeed, that is where Charters worked. He is also involved in the John Smith Trust (formerly the John Smith Memorial Trust), that old spook’s playground named after the late Labour leader, and now chaired by his widow, Baroness Elizabeth Smith.

Another intelligence-connected figure at the company was Brian Lord, who joined as managing director in September 2013 and was later appointed CEO. Lord had previously served as Deputy Director for Intelligence and Cyber Operations at GCHQ, the U.K.’s signals intelligence agency.

Other directors during Fiorin’s time included Barry Roche, the CEO, who had served in the Royal Marines from 1993 to 2001, and former Vice Admiral Sir Timothy McClement, who was Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet between 2004 and 2006.

The person listed by the company as having “significant control”—meaning ownership of more than 50% but less than 75% of shares—is Mohammed Al Barwani, the Omani billionaire. What kind of “political analysis” Fiorin may have carried out at PGI remains unknown.

 

InfluenceMap

Then, in June 2016, Fiorin took a third job as a “policy analyst” at a newly created outfit called InfluenceMap. She stayed for eighteen months. The company was set up to monitor corporate contributions toward climate change mitigation. Its funding appears to have come largely from philanthropic foundations.

A screenshot from the group’s website shows its funders, which include the Sunrise Project, Luminate, the IKEA Foundation, and the European Climate Foundation.

These funders exhibit a notable overlap with those behind Fair Observer, particularly the Sunrise Project. The European Climate Foundation, for example, has been funded by the Rockefeller family, who, as is well known, were closely involved with the CIA front group, the Congress for Cultural Freedom. As one observer puts it: “Nelson and David Rockefeller were indeed closely tied to the intelligence community and anything but shy in providing assistance to the CIA’s covert operations.”

Another funder of interest is Luminate, a foundation set up by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. As MintPress News has previously reported:

Over the years, Omidyar has invested alongside the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as well as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in strategic locations around the globe. In fact, the NED’s media arm, the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), lists the Omidyar Network as a partner organization that is “tackl[ing] the root causes of the global trust deficit” in mainstream media.”

Fiorin’s third post-graduation role also appears to sit within a milieu of connections to intelligence-linked organizations.

 

Why Did PSC Hire Deborah Fiorin?

By the time she joined the Palestine Solidarity Campaign as Membership and Data Officer, Fiorin had no visible experience in either membership or data analysis. She had studied philosophy, International relations and economics as an undergraduate in international studies and diplomacy at master’s level.

Her work experience consisted of a stint in a propaganda-linked State Department office (about nine months), followed by three months as a political analyst and 18 months in policy analysis. None of the roles, as described, appear to have involved membership or data work.

 

The politicization of Deborah Fiorin

The trajectory of Deborah Fiorin’s publicly visible Facebook imagery suggests no clear political orientation prior to her joining PSC in January 2018. After that point, she posted profile pictures featuring the antifascist logo, the emblem of a left-wing Italian party she would later stand for in 2023, and a banner promoting the national demonstration for Palestine in April 2019.

Fiorin spent three years at PSC overseeing member data, and presumably worked closely with PSC’s Mr. Data, Ben Soffa, who, as MintPress News has previously reported, maintains troublingly close relations with Zionist figures.

Fiorin’s experience at PSC was presumably leveraged to secure her next two roles, both involving membership data—first as Members and Supporters Manager at the Women’s Equality Party, and then as Supporter Relations Unit Manager at Islamic Relief UK. She has now been at Islamic Relief for nearly four years.

Islamic Relief has long been the target of intense campaigns by Zionist groups seeking to shut it down or neuter its operations, part of a broader pattern of attacks on Muslim charities across the U.K.

In 2006, Islamic Relief was smeared by the Israeli government as providing “support and assistance to Hamas’s infrastructure.” That allegation kicked off a years-long campaign against the charity, including a 2013 smear report by a short-lived regime front group, Stand for Peace. After multiple attempts to discredit the organization, the Charity Commission published a highly critical report in 2021, clearly aimed at removing trustees seen as sympathetic to the Palestinians.

The charity also previously employed Elizabeth Arif-Fear (October 2017 – July 2021), a pro-Israel operative who has been accused of infiltrating Muslim organizations. She left the organization just months after the Charity Commission’s report was published. Fiorin, too, currently holds access to substantial membership data at Islamic Relief UK. Is that data safe?

 

PSC’s Leadership Crisis

Following our exposure of the Zionist links of national secretary Ben Soffa—and now this report on the role played by Deborah Fiorin—serious questions arise about the way the PSC is being governed.

What are individuals like Fiorin and Soffa doing with access to the data of hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters? Who appointed Deborah Fiorin, and were Ben Soffa or Ben Jamal involved in that decision? Did Fiorin misrepresent her career background, or were Soffa and Jamal fully aware of her previous roles? And what of Jamal himself: is he simply asleep at the wheel, or is something more troubling going on at the top of PSC?

The membership of PSC should be asking serious, searching questions of its leadership and of its current directors. Who is safeguarding the organization from infiltration? Who is truly in control of the data, the decisions, and the direction of Britain’s leading pro-Palestine campaign?

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Professor David Miller is a non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University and a former Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol. He is a broadcaster, writer and investigative researcher; the producer of the weekly show Palestine Declassified on PressTV; and the co-director of Public Interest Investigations, of which spinwatch.org and powerbase.info are projects. He tweets @Tracking_Power.

The post Revealed: CIA-Linked Analyst Oversaw Palestine Solidarity Campaign Membership Files appeared first on MintPress News.