Introduction
Since June 2014, more than 1000 settler attacks have been carried out against Palestinians in the West Bank (Figure 1). The expansion of the illegal settlement enterprise is inseparable from the rising intensity of settler violence against Palestinian communities across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and remains increasingly concerning following the arson attack that killed three members of the Dawabsheh family – including an 18 month old child – in the Nablus region of the West Bank in July 2015. Although the United States condemns the illegal expansion of settlements in the OPT, their military aid to Israel – now standing at $3 billion a year – provides the foundation for Israel’s indifference to international condemnation. Additionally, there continues to exist 501(c)(3) registered organizations in the United States that act as financial intermediaries for Israeli-based nonprofits who actively support and promote illegal settlement expansion.
In 2012, a group of 13 Palestinians attempted to file a complaint against several US-based financial intermediaries supporting settlement activities in the OPT, seeking compensation for “terrorist activities” committed in the OPT which violates US anti-terrorism legislation. Among the organizations cited as providing financing to extremist settler organizations are Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, the Hebron Fund, Central Fund of Israel, One Israel Fund and American Friends of Ateret Cohanim. These organizations are charged with supporting terrorist activities in the OPT through the funding of settlers who have attacked Palestinians and their properties with firebombs, stones, live shooting, the burning of Palestinian land and trees and the vandalizing of Palestinian churches and mosques across the West Bank.[1] However, in April 2015, their appeal was rejected in the US Court of Appeals in New York after it was dismissed in a lower court.
These nonprofits are registered 501(c)(3) organizations in the United States that act as financial intermediaries for several Israeli nonprofits in the OPT to provide tax exempt status for their activities. Most of these nonprofits adhere to extremist Zionist ideologies and actively promote the illegal expansion of settlements and the de-Palestinianization of the OPT. At times, the organizations actively incite violence against Palestinians and are largely funded with the objective of displacing Palestinians from their homes and lands. As settler attacks against Palestinians and their properties are on the rise across the OPT, these organizations represent a dangerous presence in the region for their incitement of violence and promotion of illegal activities that uproot any potential for a just peace in Palestine.
The following sections detail several of the Israeli-based nonprofits that are receiving tax-deductible donations through US-based organizations that act as financial intermediaries to support their activities. These organizations should be analyzed within the framework of an ever-growing settler presence in the OPT that disrupts and threatens Palestinians’ daily lives and which commonly erupts into violence against Palestinian communities.
Women in Green
Women in Green (WIG) is an extremist nationalist organization led by Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar. The organization was founded in 1993 in response to the Oslo Accords and expanded their activities after the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. WIG receive tax-deductible charity donations through their New York-based financial intermediary Central Fund for Israel, a registered 501(c)(3) organization. According to their website, they are called “Women in Green,” because of the “green hats we sometimes wear to show our opposition to the abandonment of parts of our homeland,” and advocate against any Israeli recognition of the Green Line, or the 1967 borders of present-day Palestine. They claim their motto as “The land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel” and their organization’s general focus is “preventing Arab takeover of state land and strengthening the Jewish people’s possession of the land.”[2] Their activities are largely centralized on planting trees in the area of Netzer within what Israel refers to as “Gush Etzion,” a settlement bloc with a population of over 70,000 Israeli settlers and spanning an area of 69.8 km2, representing the heart of Israeli colonization activities in Bethlehem and Hebron Governorates. Gush Etzion is comprised of 11 illegal settlements: Neve Daniel, Keidar, Rosh Tzurim, El’azar, Migdal Oz, Allon Shevut, Kfar Etzion, Bat Ayin, Beitar Illit, Efrata, and Gva’ot (Figure 2).
