WAFA: “Members of US Congress demand Treasury examine charities supporting illegal Israeli settlements”
Aug 4, 2021 – – IMEMC News
▻https://imemc.org/article/wafa-members-of-us-congress-demand-treasury-examine-charities-supporting-ille
WASHINGTON, Tuesday, August 03, 2021 (WAFA) – Seven members of the US Congress wrote the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding an investigation into US charities supporting illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“We write to express our extreme concern that US charities are funding and providing direct support to Israeli organizations that are working to expand and perpetuate Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in violation of international law, including supporting the dispossession and forced displacement of Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem neighborhoods. We are concerned that these policies violate US obligations under international law, as well as federal tax law,” wrote Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Andre Carson, Betty McCollum, Mark Pocan, Ayyana Pressley and Cori Bush.
“Since Israeli forces occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967, Israeli authorities have pursued an unlawful settlement enterprise in occupied territory—an aggressive policy of seizing lands either privately owned by, or collectively used by Palestinians, and allocating them for the use and enjoyment of Jewish Israelis. Israeli authorities utilize discriminatory housing, land, and property legal regimes and impermissible military justifications to dispossess Palestinians of their lands, or destroy Palestinian homes, property, and essential civilian infrastructure. Israeli authorities and private Israeli settler organizations in collaboration with Israeli authorities have established some 200 Jewish -only settlements that house over 600,000 Israeli citizens.”
The US lawmakers added: “The broader settlement enterprise to create and sustain illegal settlements, pursuant to Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, is in direct contravention of international humanitarian law. This was reaffirmed by an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice in 2004 as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted on December 23, 2016, which reiterates previous Security Council resolutions calling on Israel to cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.