{"id":299203,"date":"2021-09-04T13:54:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-04T13:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2021\/09\/canada-charities-israel-apartheid-west-bank-occupation\/"},"modified":"2021-09-04T13:54:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-04T13:54:57","slug":"canadian-charities-are-funding-israeli-apartheid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/09\/04\/canadian-charities-are-funding-israeli-apartheid\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Charities Are Funding Israeli Apartheid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Under the cover of charity, organizations in Canada are bilking unknowing Canadian taxpayers out of public money and directing it to Israel. These charities support settlements in the West Bank and the Israeli military \u2014 they do not deserve tax exemptions.<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\n Canadian charities raised about $3.5 billion in 2018 for international initiatives, with a quarter of a billion dollars going to Israel. (B'nai Brith Canada \/ Facebook)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Canadian taxpayers are subsidizing charities that support the Israel Defense Services (IDF), promote racism against Palestinians, fund illegal West Bank settlements, and advocate for racial and religious purity in Israel.<\/p>\n

Canada is home to as many as three hundred Israel-focused registered charities. These charities are able to provide tax receipts for donations and are exempt from paying certain taxes. The wealthiest of these groups, United Israel Appeal of Canada, raised more than $93 million<\/a> in 2018. Two or three times that sum is raised annually by other Israel-focused charities.<\/p>\n

Canadian charities raised about $3.5 billion<\/a> in 2018 for international initiatives, with a quarter<\/a> of a billion dollars going to Israel. In other words, around 8 percent of these donations went to a nation with 0.13 percent of the world\u2019s population. Or, put another way, Israel received sixty times its per-capita share in donations from Canadian charities. Given that the Middle Eastern nation\u2019s GDP is, per capita, equal to Canada\u2019s, it is hard to rationalize the massive sums doled out to it by the country\u2019s charities.<\/p>\n

In a bid to shine a light on this important, if little discussed, subject, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute recently hosted a webinar titled \u201cSubsidizing Apartheid<\/a>: How the Canada Revenue Agency Contributes to Palestinian Dispossession.\u201d It was part of a formal legal complaint<\/a> submitted to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) by Palestinian-Canadian refugee Khaled Mouammar and Rabbi David Mivasair regarding the charitable status of the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association (CZCA). The complaint details that organization\u2019s support of the Israeli military in contravention of CRA rules.<\/p>\n

It is preposterous that people and organizations of conscience have had to attempt to end these subsidies by launching legal complaints against the CRA. These organizations shouldn\u2019t have charitable status in the first place.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

\u201cHelping Those Who Guard Israel\u201d<\/h2>\n \n

Canadians have been raising funds for Israel for a very long time. In the early 1900s, Canadian Zionists sent millions of dollars to support the nascent colonial movement. In the late 1920s, Canadians put up $1 million ($15 million today) for what was at the time one of the most controversial settler-colonial projects<\/a>: the purchase of land around Wadi al-Hawarith, consisting of 7,500 acres of coastal territory located about halfway between Haifa and Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n