What Happened Today – by Park MacDougald – The Scroll
On several occasions over the past month, The Scroll has reported on the network of U.S. nonprofits mobilized against Israel and lending PR support to Hamas aim of calling for a cease-fire while the organization is still intact. Some of these, such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, are part of the foundation-funded NGO Borg, taking money from progressive billionaires such as George Soros and the Rockefellers to stage AstroTurfed protests against Israeli genocide while presenting themselves as grassroots Jewish organizations. But with other nonprofits, the connections with Hamas are more direct so much so that they may fall afoul of U.S. terrorism financing laws. Now state and national Republicans appear to be taking notice.
The main targets of these investigations are likely to be two related organizations, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). In October, two Republican-led states, Florida and Virginia, announced actions against nonprofits allegedly linked to Hamas the former in a letter from Gov. Ron DeSantis banning SJP from state university campuses, the latter by way of a state attorney general s investigation into AMP for potential violations of Virginia s charitable solicitations laws. On Nov. 10, the Republican Attorneys General Association proposed to make this a broader policy in the 28 states with Republican AGs, adopting a resolution that called on state attorneys general to use the legal tools at their disposal to investigate and, where applicable, prosecute organizations within their jurisdictions that provide aid or funding to Hamas or other organizations which provide support to terrorists.
On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on the Nexus Between Terror Financing, Tax-Exempt Charities, & Antisemitism. In his opening remarks, committee chair Jason Smith (R-MO) specifically named AMP and SJP as tax-exempt organizations that may be providing illegal support to Hamas an allegation supported by testimony from Jonathan Schanzer, a senior official at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank and a former terrorism financing analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department.