Activists Press To Stop New York From Subsidizing Illegal Israeli Settlements

First of kind in U.S., bill would block flow of money from NY “charities” to Israeli groups ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

A coalition of legal and grassroots organizations is rallying behind groundbreaking legislation that would stop New York State from subsidizing illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine. Under the bill, the Not on Our Dime! Act, New York-based organizations with charitable status would be prohibited from funding the Israeli settler organizations that are forcing Palestinians out of their generational homes, stealing their land, and committing a range of other human rights abuses.

“Israeli settler violence against Palestinians has reached alarming levels, and we can’t let U.S.-based charities be used as fronts for illegal settlement construction on Palestinian land,” said Sumaya Awad, Director of Strategy at the Adalah Justice Project. “New Yorkers are becoming increasingly critical of support for Israeli apartheid. It’s long past time our state government caught up and took action to end funding for violence perpetrated against Palestinians.”

Palestinian protesters at the Save Sheikh Jarrah rally for a Free Palestine, urging the UK government to take immediate action and stop allowing Israel to act with impunity.

New York-based nonprofits raising money in New York are a major source of funding for Israeli settler organizations. These settler organizations work in tandem with the Israeli military, rely on discriminatory laws, and often deploy outright brutality to push Palestinians off their ancestral lands. One New York-registered group operating as a charity, the Central Fund of Israel (CFI), has raised almost $50 million annually for Israel and its illegal settlements, and is a funder of some of the major Israeli settler groups.

“Aiding and abetting war crimes is not charitable, period. This bill goes a long way toward ensuring that New York is not inadvertently subsidizing war crimes, but rather creating paths for accountability,” said Vince Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.