Lawsuit filed against US Treasury to stop donations to illegal Settlements

Last December, a group of  U.S. citizens filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Treasury, which alleges that 150 non-profit groups illegally sent $180 billion in aid to the Israeli army and Illegal settlements in Palestine.

The lawsuit includes the Friends of the IDF, Hebron Fund and pro-Israel lobbyist and billionaire Sheldon Adelson, among others.

The lawsuit claims that these organizations are committing a crime by knowingly sending funds abroad, which fund theft of private property, mail fraud, war crimes, and terrorism.

It also claims that without the tax exempt entities’ funding, which the lawsuit states now totals $1 billion dollars annually,  the original settlements would have left their tent encampments thirty years ago.

The lawsuit states that without a court order the U.S. Treasury will not investigate the issue because it has shown a “a double standard when it comes to monitoring and/or investigating the activities of pro-settlement 501(c)(3)s” and it has “an abysmal track record in terms of designating pro-settlement tax-exempt officials or their donors for promoting violence in the Middle East.”

While neither the Treasury or State Department gave any comment about the case to PiA, according to Al Jazeera the State Department said in an email that “This [Obama] administration, like every administration before it since 1967, views settlement activity as illegitimate and counterproductive to the cause of peace.”

However the fact that the U.S. government has previously ignoredsimilar legal complaints about the U.S. taxpayers’ money going to support Israeli terrorism shows that while the State Department may condemn illegal settlements publicly it turns a blind eye towards the organizations that fund them.