House of Representatives passes bill targeting charities and pro-Palestinian groups

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would grant the Treasury Department the authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit organization it deems an “organization supporting terrorism,” effectively could implicate many pro-Palestinian groups. of Israel's war against Gaza in danger.

H.R. 9495, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, passed by a vote of 219 to 184, divided primarily along partisan lines. Fifteen Democrats, however, voted in favor of the bill, and only one Republican voted against it.

The bill, introduced by a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans, has two parts. The first would grant tax-exempt status and relief to American hostages held abroad. The second part would give the Treasury Secretary the authority to issue advisories to organizations, with the goal of labeling them “terrorist” support groups.

Any group that received this notice could appeal. However, the law gives the U.S. Treasury Department the authority to issue these designations without explaining the reasons.

The bill's passage was immediately condemned by civil liberties groups, who warned that it could be used to attack pro-Palestinian groups in the United States as well as any groups working to facilitate aid to Gaza, where Israeli forces are overseeing a devastating war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 2023, when the war on Gaza erupted after Hamas-led attacks on the south of Israel.

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By voting for HR 9495 today, the House of Representatives chose fear over freedom, said Kia Hamadanchy, senior federal policy advisor at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement shared with Middle East Eye.

“After more than 100 years of defending civil liberties in this country, we know that the American people will not sit still while politicians try to ram through undemocratic legislation like this.”

The bill now heads to the Senate, where it could fail, with Democrats enjoying a slim majority in the upper chamber. However, if it fails, the bill could return in 2025 under a Republican presidency of Donald Trump, coupled with a Republican majority in the House and Senate.

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A coalition of more than 300 civil liberties groups signed a letter urging lawmakers not to pass the bill, which they said “would grant the executive branch extraordinary power to effectively investigate, harass and dismantle any organization non-profit organizations – including media, universities and civil liberties organizations like ours.

Although the measure originally enjoyed broad bipartisan support before Trump's re-election, much of the fear over its passage in recent weeks centered on the powers it would give the incoming Trump administration to pursue any organization of his choice.

The original version of the bill passed the House in April by a vote of 382-11.

However, the main objective of this measure was the building and organizing of a movement around the issue of Palestinian rights.

Republican Rep. David Kustoff, a co-sponsor of the bill, explicitly stated that the bill aims to “dismantle the financial networks of terrorist organizations, including Hamas.”

After Hamas attacks in southern Israel and Israel's response with a full-scale war on Gaza that killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, many U.S. lawmakers profiled individuals and groups protesting the Israel's war as supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group. .

“Tax-exempt charitable organizations operating in the United States provide support, encouragement and potential funding to Hamas and Hamas-affiliated groups,” Republican Congressman Jason Smith said at a congressional hearing in November 2023.

Trump and his nominees for key cabinet positions have also repeatedly equated pro-Palestinian protesters with sympathy or support for terrorism.

Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, accused the hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters in the United States of being puppets of a “radical Islamist organization,” apparently referring to Hamas .

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