Settlements and tax exemptions
The Washington Post's David Ignatius points out that while U.S. policy prohibits aid money going to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, U.S. organizations that raise money for those settlements get a tax exemption:
For many years, the United States has had a policy against spending aid money to fund Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which successive administrations have regarded as an obstacle to peace. Yet private organizations in the United States continue to raise tax-exempt contributions for the very activities that the government opposes.
There's nothing illegal about the charitable contributions to pro-settlement organizations, which are documented in filings with the Internal Revenue Service. They're similar to tax-exempt donations made to thousands of foreign organizations around the world through groups that are often described as "American friends of" the recipient.
But critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns. A search of IRS records identified 28 U.S. charitable groups that made a total of $33.4 million in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organizations between 2004 and 2007.
"This is an issue that has not gotten the attention it deserves," said Ori Nir, a spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, a lobbying group that opposes settlements. "I don't know how many people, including in the U.S. government, realize the extent of private American funding to settlements. . . . Every dollar that goes to settlements makes Middle East peace that much harder to reach."The Obama administration had an early confrontation over settlements when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Israel this month. She criticized Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in a largely Arab area of Jerusalem known as Silwan, just below the walls of the Old City. "Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful," she said. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat responded that Clinton was mistaken and that the Palestinian houses had been built illegally.
One of the Israeli organizations that has led the way in developing this area of East Jerusalem is called Ir David, or City of David. Like other pro-settlement groups, it has an active fundraising effort in the United States. According to Form 990s filed with the IRS, Friends of Ir David raised $8.7 million in 2004, $1.2 million in 2005 and $2.7 million in 2006.
The group's primary tax-exempt purpose, according to the IRS filings, is: "To create a charitable fund to provide financial aid & other reasonable assistance to benefit the Jewish people of the Old City of Jerusalem. To teach about the history and archeology of the biblical city of Jerusalem. To offer aid & assistance for education, housing & the rehabilitation of distressed properties."
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Now here is an exemption that needs to be revoked. Israel uses settlements the way Hamas uses Qassams. The US has no hesitation about shutting down Moslem charities that raise money for Hamas. Even if that money doesn’t go to buy missiles it frees up other money to buy the missiles. Same for settlements. The US would do everyone, but especially the Jews, a huge favor by shutting down the groups that raise money to buy West Bank land and build more settlements. 40 years of occupation has made Israel less, not more safe. Time to end the madness.
Ignatius is misleading and I’ve reacted/responded here:
http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2009/03/ignatius-misleading.html
and here:
http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2009/03/ignatius-ignorant-or-misinformed.html
The point is that there is nothing intrinsically illegal in the transferal of monies donated through charitable organizations to projects that are defined as worthy as such, unlike, for example, monies given to Peace Now that are exclusively engaged in political work disguised as “education” but, because they serve the political agenda of this or that Administration or US government officials, they are overlooked. And if all agreements of ‘peace’ refer to final status issues, then until something is declared illegal (and not just presumed illegal), articles like those of Ignatius, prodded by Peace Now from who he received the information, are incitement. That the US can award almost 1 billion dollars to Gaza, even if through the PA, when all know it will support Hamas, a terror organization, and Ignatius, et. al. doesn’t protest is stupendous. It’s hypocrisy.
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Mark S. Devenow
03/27/09 05:11 PM
I fear that the David Ignatius piece quoted above is prolepsis for, and/or harbinger of, a bacchanal of leftist media “investigative reporting” targeting organizations that are both worthy and important to the US-Israel alliance.
Certainly there are those placed in high appointive foreign policy positions who will be cheering this effort to delegitimize the good work of these organizations .
This tells me that these kinds of attacks have to be answered.
Without arrogating anything to myself in the vein of this necessity, it might be useful for starters to point out that, the Obama Administration, insofar as it is or might become interested in alighting upon tax exempt organizations in the name of curtailing deductions in favor of entities which violate or affront American public policy in one way or another, ought to begin with the Arab “charities” that actively raise funds (via various shams, artifices and ruses) that go to the paymasters of the murderers of Americans.
If this order of priority is followed, Americans who support various projects of which David Ignatius (and his cohort in the liberal media) presumably disapproves, have little to worry about where it comes to their tax deductions for worthy cause.