Dr. Diane B. Kunz, Esq.

Wrong-Headed Initiative

Equal treatment before United States law and government. That is a foundational American principle. Its aspirational neutrality, usually achieved, is one reason why people from so many nations with different ethnicities and differing religious beliefs have thrived in this country. Now J Street would challenge this basic principle in the purported service of helping to bring about a two state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.   This discriminatory and wrong-headed idea must be opposed by anyone who supports an objective government of laws not ideology.

J Street calls  “on its supporters and all who support a just Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement to urge the US Treasury to review the tax-deductibility status of contributions to groups working to entrench or expand Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.”[1] The rationale is that because the U.S. government has expressed opposition to Jewish settlments in the contested territories, charitable contributions that concretely aid such settlements should not be tax deductible under the U.S. tax code.

screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-11-05-43-amDoes J Street and its allies, really want the IRS to determine which organizations supports goals and ideas that in some way oppose some aspect of federal government policy and which do not pass inspection?

Tax deductibility can be obtained by:   A community chest, corporation, trust, fund, or foundation, organized or created in the United States or its possessions, or under the laws of the United States, any state, the District of Columbia or any possession of the United States, and organized and operated exclusively for charitable, religious, educational, scientific, or literary purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. See here.

If so, here is a partial list of organizations that may lose tax exempt status:

  • Save the Children, since it aids Morocco whose annexation of parts of the Western Sahara is not recognized by international law.
  • SOS Children’s Villages, because it aids Turkish controlled North Cyprus, whose existence as an independent nation is recognized only by Turkey;
  • Unicef, because it aids Indian Kashmir and Jammu, whose borders have been contested since 1948.

Most on point, any organization which in anyway supports the BDS movement because one of BDS’ founding principles is Israel is not and cannot ever be “a state like any other.” The” Israel as international pariah” position violates U.S and well as International law.

screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-11-19-32-amHow about domestic policy? Should donations to Catholic churches and Evangelical Christian churches be denied because their priests and ministers preach against abortion? Should donations to Islamic mosques be denied because Imams preach against gay marriage?

To ask these questions is to show how disastrous the policy J Street advocates would be were it ever to be applied. But the “peace” advocates do not see past their one-sided obsession with Israel.They are willing to jeopardize a basic American core belief that federal agencies like the IRS must treat all taxpayers, including 501 (c) 3 non-profit organizations equally, regardless of whether or not they are for or against abortion, for or against giving aid to Turkish Cyprus or for or against settlements in the West Bank When Richard Nixon misused the IRS we rightly called foul. We call foul now.

LDB President Kenneth L. Marcus, University of Virginia

On Thursday, September 29, LDB President & General Counsel Kenneth L. Marcus will address the LDB Law Student Chapter at the University of Virginia (UVA) on the topic of, “Making Dollars or Making Change: Big Law, Human Rights, and Becoming a Purposeful Lawyer.” Marcus will describe his career path and discuss his current work in the area of civil rights law.

Marcus is the author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press: 2015) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press: 2010). Marcus founded the Brandeis Center in 2011 to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism in American higher education. The following year, Marcus was named to the Forward 50, the Jewish Daily Forward’s listing of the “American Jews who made the most significant impact on the news in the past year.” The Forward described its 50 honorees as “the new faces of Jewish power,” predicting that “if Marcus has any say in it, we may witness a new era of Jewish advocacy.” During his public service career, Marcus served as Staff Director at the United States Commission on Civil Rights and was delegated the authority of Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights and Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Shortly before his departure from the Civil Rights Commission, the Wall Street Journal observed that “the Commission has rarely been better managed,” and that it “deserves a medal for good governance.” Marcus also serves as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism. Marcus previously held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College School of Public Affairs (2008-2011). Before entering public service, Mr. Marcus was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Jerusalem Post, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and The Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Marcus is a graduate of Williams College, magna cum laude, and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

UC Berkeley School of Law

On Thursday, September 29, LDB Senior Staff Attorney Jennie Gross will address the LDB Law Student Chapter at the University of California at Berkeley on anti-Semitism, civil rights, and the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. Jennie joined LDB earlier this year with ten years of experience litigating in federal courts on behalf of plaintiffs in class actions, mass torts, including the Vioxx litigation, antitrust litigation against Microsoft, and complex litigation against the tobacco industry. Jennie also has strong background in policy analysis, and is the co-author of the textbook Class Actions Dilemmas: Pursuing Public Goals for Private Gain, which has been used to teach complex litigation to law students. More recently, Jennie completed a fellowship in Tobacco Regulatory Science at FDA. Jennie graduated from Emory University (BA, Economics) and the University of Southern California Law Center (JD). She is also a former Doctoral Fellow in public policy at the RAND Corporation.