Since 1967, Israel has been establishing illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and, since 1967, they are the primary driver of Israel’s expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians from their land, destruction of Palestinian homes, cities, and towns, and theft of Palestinian natural resources.

Over 700,000 Israeli settlers live on 250 illegal settlements built on Palestinian land in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Israeli settlements have carved the occupied West Bank into disconnected islands of Palestinian bantustans, completely cut off from one another, and surrounded by areas Palestinians are prohibited from entering. To expand these settlements, Israeli settlers and their institutions have used a combination of discriminatory laws, Israeli military decrees, surveillance, and outright violence, often waged by private individuals with the backing of the Israeli military.

The pursuit of the Israeli settlement project entails several war crimes, including the unlawful appropriation or seizure of Palestinian land, the forcible transfer of Palestinians from their land, and the transfer of Israelis onto occupied Palestinian land.

Between 2017 and 2019 alone, organizations that are known to fund illegal settler organizations fundraised over 144 million dollars in New York State. These dollars sustain Israeli settler violence and have enabled settlements to significantly expand in the past two years.

These New York-registered charities include the Central Fund of Israel (CFI), Friends of Ir David, American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, the One Israel Fund, and the Israel Independence Fund. With the status of a New York-registered non-profit organization, these organizations are able to raise hundreds of millions of tax-exempt dollars for the purpose of expelling Palestinians out of their generational homes and land. For example, Friends of Ir David funds the Israeli settler group Elad, which is responsible for countless demolitions of Palestinian homes. Friends of Ir David gave Elad $36 million between 2006 to 2013, according to Haaretz. These organizations masquerade as charities while funding illegal activities, including war crimes.

Let’s examine the Central Fund of Israel (CFI), a New York-registered nonprofit, and one of the largest identifiable organizations that fund Israeli settler organizations. CFI’s founders sought to push U.S. philanthropy towards funding settlements. Today, CFI is one of the most significant sources of NY-based non-governmental funding to Israeli settlements; its size has more than doubled since 2017, sending almost 50 million dollars annually to Israel and its illegal settlements. Several CFI grantees work to entrench and expand Jewish-only Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and displace Palestinians. These grantees include: Regavim, Ateret Cohanim, Hashomer Yehuda ve Shomron or Hashomer YOSH, Israel Land Fund, and ​​Kela Shlomo (Concert for Israel/Voices of Israel).

Learn more about the CFI and their grantees here.

While it may feel far away, many of the Israeli settlers and settler institutions that are essential to the settlement enterprise are actually funded by organizations here in New York State. Despite aiding and abetting violations of international law, these organizations masquerade as charities, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to ethnic cleansing and war crimes. By allowing them non-profit status, New York State is effectively subsidizing these atrocities. We must refuse this charade and end funding of human rights violations overseas.

Over the last decade, there have been multiple reports exposing the flow of money from New York to Israeli settlement organizations via New York-registered non-profits. There is also a robust growing record of how these Israeli settler organizations are involved in war crimes: whether by pursuing campaigns to displace entire villages (like Khan Al Ahmar, and Masafer Yatta) or via the daily harassment and assault of Palestinian farmers, shepherds, and hikers. When faced with such a record of violations and no action to date, it is incumbent on New Yorkers to stand up and demand an end to support for illegal Israeli settlements. We must actively take steps to ensure that New York-based groups are not aiding and abetting war crimes. That’s what the Not On Our Dime! Act asks our legislators to stop.

This legislation (A6943/S6992) takes on the issue of charitable status for organizations that support illegal activities, and helps stop New York support for Israeli settlements in three ways:

• The legislation establishes a prohibition in the not-for-profit corporation law on aiding and abetting illegal Israeli settlement activity and clarifies that such support is inconsistent with any charitable purpose. Organizations that fund illegal Israeli settlement activity, as defined in the legislation, would be prohibited from the benefits of non profit status.

• The legislation allows the Attorney General to fine organizations that knowingly fund settlements by a sum not less than one million dollars.

• The legislation empowers Palestinians who have been harmed by settlements or settler violence funded in part by New York-based charities to seek accountability. This legislation offers Palestinians a day in court against individuals and organizations who knowingly bankroll this violence.

Overall, this legislation makes clear that New Yorkers do not support violations of international law. By explicitly naming Israeli settlements, and the war crimes that they entail, this legislation signals New Yorkers’ values, and directs enforcement priorities. This would be a first under New York law.

In New York State, the Attorney General, through the New York Charities Bureau, is tasked with regulating charitable organizations, including by ensuring that those organizations – which claim to be holding assets or accepting funds for charitable purposes – are actually using funds for charitable purposes.

The Attorney General has the power to strip any organization which improperly claims a charitable purpose of their non-profit status.

This pioneering legislation makes explicit what is implicit–that a certain class of activities are fundamentally inconsistent with a charitable purpose, and should therefore subject an organization to dissolution.

• The legislation is specific as to which activities are fundamentally inconsistent with a charitable purpose–violations of the Geneva Conventions, or war crimes.

• The legislation names specific internationally recognized war crimes which are currently being funded by NYS charitable organizations–an issue that has been the subject of deep reporting and thorough journalistic investigation.

This legislation creates an explicit cause of action, allowing individuals who have been harmed by settlement activity to sue the New York-based groups who aided and abetted them.

Many organizations have already called on the Attorney General’s office to use the ample authority she has under existing law to investigate New York-registered charities, and we stand ready to support any of her efforts to do so.

We are a group of individuals and organizations* who feel strongly that our state should not be complicit in Israeli apartheid. For decades, Palestinians have called on people around the world to end financial support for Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land. They have specifically identified money that flows directly from U.S. not-for-profits to the settler organizations that work hand in hand with the Israeli military to displace them. New Yorkers heeded this call and launched Not on Our Dime!

*Adalah Justice Project, The Center for Constitutional Rights, Jewish Voice for Peace - NYC, NYC-Democratic Socialists of America, Movement for Black Lives, Muslim Democratic Club of NY, Palestinian Youth Movement, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

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