This fall, with Obama’s approval down to the low 50s, the president moved away from the freeze, and focused on just getting Palestinians and Israelis to the same table.
Compared to the Bush Administration’s policy toward settlement construction — which was allegedly encouraged behind closed doors at the highest levels — President Obama’s approach has been called “harsh” by the Israeli government but heralded by those who wish to see the US broker a two-state solution. Like its predecessors for the past three decades, the Obama administration, however, has turned a blind eye to what makes the building and maintenance of these illegal settlements possible — donations from American charities.
Which begs the question: Can tax-exempt American donations be used to fund activities that are explicitly opposed to American foreign policy? No, according to a 1983 decision by the US Supreme Court that ruled tax-exempt groups cannot oppose American policy.
This has lead the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) to hire lawyers and make a legal effort to strip the not-for-profit status of American groups that fund settlements.
Two decades ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that donations to Israel worldwide were already reaching $1 billion per year; 70 percent of this amount came from the United States.
Case in point: Bloomberg reported last summer that Renco Group Inc. founder Ira Rennert and bingo entrepreneur Irving Moskowitz were among US donors “who have given $25.4 million in five years to build Jewish homes in Arab parts of Jerusalem — the same areas that President Barack Obama is pressing Israel to stop such construction.”
US citizens such as Moskowitz are making donations to the settlement enterprise in direct contravention of official US policy, but many of these donations are also tax-deductible and deliberately sent to fund construction in areas, which are recognized by the US, the EU and the UN to be under illegal occupation by Israel.
According to Gershom Gorenberg, author of “The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements,” donors like Moskowitz “want to prevent any political compromise that might lead to a peace agreement.”
According to David Ignatius, who recently wrote in the Washington Post: “Often the US charities will specify that their gifts are going to charities in Israel, even though the recipients are in the West Bank, which the United States regards as occupied territory.
As such, an estimated $50 billion has been spent to fund the settlements, according to Israeli President Shimon Peres.
David Ignatius added: “A search of Internal Revenue Service records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4 million in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organizations between 2004 and 2007.
