Is the Obama Administration Targeting Pro-Israel / Pro-Jewish Groups?

Mike L.

According to Alana Goodman, of the conservative Washington Free Beacon, they are.

She writes:

A watch list from the Internal Revenue Service listed “Occupied Territory Advocacy” as a criterion for flagging nonprofit organizations for further scrutiny, according to documents released by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Pro-Israel organizations and groups that support the Israeli settlements have alleged that the IRS singled them out for additional scrutiny since 2009.

The watch list defines these groups as “Applications [that] deal with disputed territories in the Middle East. … Applications may be inflammatory, advocate a one-sided point of view and promotional material may signify propaganda.”

“If you see these cases, please forward to the TAG Group, 7830,” the document continues.
The “TAG,” or “Touch-and-Go” group, is responsible for identifying groups that may be involved in terrorism, according to the IRS Tax Exempt Organizations Determinations group.

If what Goodman writes is true it means that the Obama administration is targeting pro-Jewish groups who support Jewish sovereignty on Jewish land as terrorist organizations.

Week by week, month by month, it becomes harder to see the Obama administration as anything other than anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.  I often point out that the Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood in its rise to prominence throughout the Middle East, particularly in Egypt.  The reason that I do so is because the Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood in its rise to prominence throughout the Middle East, particularly in Egypt.

How it is possible that Obama's Jewish supplicants and sycophants ignore this is beyond me.

That the Obama crew supported the rise of radical Islam throughout the Middle East is a matter of recent historical fact.  Whether or not the Obama administration supports the targeting of pro-Israel and pro-Jewish groups by the IRS has yet, to my mind, to be entirely determined.

Nonetheless, there seems to be considerable evidence to suggest that they have.

Goodman writes:

One of the pro-Israel groups targeted was HaYovel, a Nashville-based pro-settlement charity that was mentioned prominently in the New York Times article. Six months after the article appeared, HaYovel was audited by the IRS.

“We bookend that story. We were the first [group mentioned]. They really kind of focused on us,” HaYovel’s founder Tommy Waller said in May. “Then six months later we had an audit.”

“We 100-percent support Judea and Samaria, and Jewish sovereignty in that area, and the current administration is 100 percent opposed to Jewish sovereignty in that area of Israel,” Waller added. “That’s why we suspected that we would have to deal with [an audit].”

I know nothing of HaYovel, so I cannot speak to whether or not I agree with their politics, but whether I or Barack Obama agree with their politics, or not, is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not they were targeted by the Obama administration due to those politics.

The truth of the matter is that - in my opinion - Obama's Jewish supporters, unless they are anti-Zionists, are dupes.  Even as we speak US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is trying to force Israel to release Jihadis and murderers in order to persuade the allegedly much oppressed local Arabs to come to the bargaining table.  Yet I have never heard of an oppressed people who require concessions from their oppressors in order for them to even consider gaining their own autonomy.

It's a puzzlement, really.

But if the Obama administration is targeting pro-Israel / pro-Jewish groups for economic persecution then I would hope that progressive-left "Zionists" might reconsider their support for the administration.

I can hope, but I would not count on it.