Honenu is an Israeli Zionist legal aid organisation, providing legal help to suspected terrorists, violent settlers, and receives from both Israel and overseas. It has assisted over 15,000 Jews accused of violence on behalf of Am Yisrael. It is alleged that it bankrolled over 15,000 Jews, including the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, among others. It operates as a tax exempt organisation in the United States.
I quote their website: “Many individuals in these situations suffer from emotional, financial, and legal pressures. Most are confused and disoriented as to how to proceed with the Israeli legal system and the serious ramifications of such a trial. Some of these noble citizens remain free, some are incarcerated, but all are in need of proper and assertive, but costly legal defense. Honenu is there to assist them”.
On the one hand the US has been trying to broker peace between the Israelis and their settlers on the one hand and the Palestinians on the other. Meanwhile, the US government has been allowing an American organisation, exempt of tax, to raise money to undermine its own efforts for peace. This is not reasonable or moderate. No one can stop Honenu from raising money to aid terrorism -it’s called “free speech” – but if it does so it should pay tax like anyone else. It is not a charity. Charities do not encourage violence and land grabs.
Unfortunately any non-profit can claim tax exempt status in the US very easily. The obvious example is churches. As John Oliver demonstrated recently, the IRS will allow almost anything that vaguely resembles a church to be tax exempt, because the tax code lacks clarity. The churches can teach whatever hateful nonsense they like, and still be exempt. This also allows the super wealthy to avoid paying vast amounts of money, by diverting it to ‘charities’ that they have a great deal of influence over.
The only solution is to change the tax code, to allow the IRS to deny organisations that support violence and hate tax exempt status. But conservatives would argue that’s a breech of the 1st Amendment, and it’s subjective as to what constitutes hate speech, so the government could use the power of the IRS to undermine political adversaries or simply anyone it doesn’t like. In my heart I agree with you, but my head says there’s no alternative.