By Micah Halpern
I've Been Thinking:
Two American Arabs and an American Jew have brought suit against the US Treasury for not supervising non-profit groups that are giving money to Israel. The groups receiving the monies are not named in the suit but are brought forth as examples of violations of US law and Treasury rules for tax free donations.
The complaint is 72 pages long and was formally submitted on December 16th. It claims that over $1 billion a year of US money goes to illegal causes and is tax deducted. The complaint lists many groups that they are accusing of giving money and says that there are 150 groups guilty of doing this.
The groups include, Friends of IDF, Friends of Ariel University, The Hebron Fund and The Gush Etzion Foundation. The case asserts that some of these groups have no presence at all in the United States other than a post office box. The case asserts that up to a trillion dollars of tax money is lost.
The suit claims that the money is supporting terror and violence as well as violating human rights.
This case has no merit. It is wrong and it will be thrown out.
Never the less, it is disturbing.
The problem with the case is that it is predicated on the assumption that everything that Israel does is illegal and violates international law.
The complaint says: "Treasury claims that it takes a very vigorous and active role in terms of monitoring the activities"
An attorney for the group said: "Huge tax deductions are being taken that support ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Guess who picks up the tab? The American taxpayer. There's something wrong with that. "
The complaint continues: "U.S. tax-exempt entities and their donors, settlement leaders, and the construction companies they hired to build housing developments and shopping malls can all be criminally prosecuted because they have conspired to fund, facilitate, trespass on, demolish and/or confiscate private Palestinian property, all in the name of settlement expansion."
The people behind this suit want these groups to be called "special designated global terrorists," stripping them of their tax-exempt status and freezing their assets. The case states: "There are huge penalties that go with that."
The people bringing the suit assert that the US and the Treasury are being two-faced. That they are not following their own laws regarding Israel and have turned a blind eye for decades.
The suit states that: "the entities cannot promote or finance racially or religiously discriminatory practices, nor can they violate federal statutes in the process of raising funds and/or transmitting the funds overseas."
It is a foolish lawsuit - but it clearly demonstrates that the Palestinians and their supports, like those in the BDS movement, are getting creative in their attacks against Israel.
They are trying to hurt Israel in the pocket book.
Micah@MicahHalpern.com
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