O ne of the textbook definitions of antisemitism is holding Jews and/or the Jewish state to a standard that is applied to nobody else. Progressives in the New York state legislature are pushing legislation, the “Not On Our Dime Act,” that fits the definition to a T. As Jeff Coltin of Politico notes, the bill “is a priority of the Democratic Socialists of America and is sponsored by DSA-aligned lawmakers — Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani and state Sen. Jabari Brisport.” Introduced last spring, it has now attracted the support of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The bill is an attack on Jews, on free speech and free exercise of religion, on private charity, on private property, and on federal control of U.S. foreign policy.
Those, to its supporters, are its virtues.
The full title of the bill is “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence act.” Right off the bat, we see the progressive mind at work in the notion that the state’s allowing people to donate their own money to a non-profit is somehow the government “funding” with “our dime” the recipients of those donations simply because non-profits are tax exempt. AOC says, “This should be part of our broader human rights commitment to ensure that U.S. taxpayer funds do not go to the violations of human rights anywhere in the globe,” but even if she was similarly concerned about human-rights violations by non-Jews (she’s not), it’s not “U.S. taxpayer funds” when people give their own money.
The bill aims to ban not-for-profit corporations in New York from engaging in “Unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity,” meaning “aiding and abetting activity by the Israeli armed forces, the government of Israel, or citizen [sic] thereof, that is illegal” under the Geneva convention “or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party.” Notice that you do not need to personally engage in such activity to fall within the act’s prohibitory sweep; aiding and abetting is enough. Under New York common law, that should still be a stringent test, entailing actual knowledge and substantial participation in the underlying conduct. That said, the bill’s authors plainly aim to use the mere threat of legal action to chill fundraising.
What conduct is banned? Prohibited activity includes aiding and abetting not only violence but also “the unlawful transfer of Israeli civilians into occupied territory,” the acquisition of land there, and even “eviction” of Palestinians. So . . . are these people consistently against illegal immigration? Not unless the immigrants are Jews — the DSA is usually stridently opposed to any effort to prevent people from crossing borders to settle, legally or otherwise. Illustrating the disparate treatment, another provision of the bill prohibits involvement in the “deportation” of Palestinians just as it demands the removal of Jews.
“Occupied territory” is defined as “the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.” Geography is not the DSA’s strong suit. Gaza is not part of the West Bank any more than West Virginia is included in Maryland, and at the time the bill was written last May, Gaza was in no sense occupied by Israel or inhabited by any Jews.
The bill arms Attorney General Letitia James with enormous powers: She can sue to “dissolve a charitable corporation” for violations or seek civil penalties “of not less than one million dollars” — that’s right, a million-dollar minimum with no maximum. Surely, James would never engage in a heedlessly political vendetta with the powers of her office, you say. But in case that’s not enough, the proposed bill also allows “any individual damaged” to sue “any trustee, director, manager, or other officer or agent of a not-for-profit corporation” for damages and/or injunctive relief, with such suits being encouraged by authorizing the plaintiffs to recover attorneys’ fees. And both the attorney general and private plaintiffs are given a ten-year statute of limitations in which to bring claims, ensuring that the threat of litigation will mount as it becomes harder over time to factually rebut bogus claims.
The bill’s proponents say that, a year later, “The scope of the bill was expanded in May 2024 to reflect the additional fundraising for war crimes in both the West Bank and Gaza that has occurred since Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023.” Israel’s assault that began in October 2023. I wonder what prompted that?
The bill is bad on the merits and bad in principle. It takes sides in the Israel–Palestinian conflict firmly against Israel. It would embroil New York courts in fact-finding that an American state court, with subpoena powers limited in geographic scope, is ill-equipped to resolve.
The bill singles out Jews, and only Jews. New York non-profits have been raising money for overseas causes forever, many of them for use around the world without much regard for whether the money was going for purposes that were strictly legal (and, in supporting dissidents from China to the Soviet Union to South Africa, sometimes for purposes that were expressly set against foreign governments). New York for over a century turned a blind eye to its status as a fundraising hub for the Irish Republican Army and other Irish radical organizations.
It’s debatable what is worse: that this legislation would single out only Jews, or the prospect that it would set a precedent to go after other charities. Picking and choosing disfavored viewpoints and causes undercuts the basic free speech and free exercise of religious liberty that drive charitable donations to a vast array of causes.
In addition, a state government’s trying to inject itself into foreign affairs in this manner seriously interferes with the authority of the federal government to speak with one voice abroad for the United States. Federal authorities have sometimes cracked down on money flowing into and out of the United States for various foreign-policy reasons, including American promotion of terrorism (even the IRA). Those decisions need to be made in Washington, not Albany. Even AOC has previously joined a letter with her colleagues Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, André Carson, Betty McCollum, and Mark Pocan asking the Treasury to crack down on these charities.
This bill has national support from the DSA, but in New York, even many Democrats have balked at it. The heads of both the state senate and state assembly promised to keep the bill from a vote when it was introduced in May 2023. Nina Rozic, a Queens Democrat, led the opposition a year ago and told the New York Times this week, “I believe it intends harm on the Jewish community and its communal organization. Instead we should be committed to finding common ground with our colleagues here in New York, rather than focusing on legislation aimed at dividing Democrats.” New York Democrats may have a serious infestation of progressive antisemites, but the party isn’t yet suicidal enough to turn this forcefully against its historic base in the state’s large Jewish community. For example, “In 2016, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order directing the state to divest all assets from organizations engaged with the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement.”
But we should have no illusions about what AOC and the DSA movement stand for — and whom they stand against.