The New York’s state assembly will consider legislation aimed at preventing registered US charities from sending money to fund illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied West Bank, The New York Post newspaper reported on Tuesday.
According to the newspaper, pro-Palestinian Democratic socialist lawmakers Zohran Mamdani of Queens, and Jabari Brisport of Brooklyn are the ones who introduced the legislation, entitled, “Not on Our Dime!: Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act”.
The act would “give the state attorney general the authority to revoke a charity’s tax-exempt status if involved in aiding the expansion of Israel-only settlements that displace Palestinians,” according to The Post.
US Congresswoman Betty McCollum Reintroduces Bill to Restrict Aid to Israel
“These settlements play an important role in entrenching Israel’s apartheid rule over millions of Palestinians who are forced to live in enclaves surrounded by checkpoints and with a separate set of rules and rights based on their ethnicity,” Mamdani, one of the two lawmakers who introduced the legislation said in a statement.
Mamdani was also quoted in an interview with the British Guardian newspaper saying,
“What we have is a number of New York state-registered charities that are sending at least $60m a year to Israeli settlement organizations which then use that funding to continue the history of expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
The legislation is reportedly supported by several rights groups, including the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace.
All Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal under international law.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
