Trump Appointee Ran Charity That Donated to Middle Eastern Terrorist Group
by Colin Kalmbacher | 1:57 pm, May 12th, 2018
President Donald Trump‘s hand-picked ambassador to Israel was the president of a charity when it allegedly donated tens of thousands of dollars to a far-right terrorist group based in the Middle East.
According to a Friday report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, David Friedman led the American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva Center (also known as American Friends of Bet El Institutions) when it donated some $12,000 to the Qomemiyut Movement, a U.S. State Department-designated terrorist organization more commonly known by its prior name, Kahane Chai.
An article in Israel’s paper of record, Haaretz, pegged the amount of funds donated by Friedman’s group to Qomemiyut quite a bit higher: roughly $93,000 between 2008 and 2013. The payments were originally noted by anti-racist Israeli NGO Democratic Bloc.
Based on the ideology and personality cult of anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane, Kahane Chai and its associated fellow travelers support de jure and de facto discrimination against Arabs living in Israel, the revocation of Israeli citizenship for those not of Jewish descent and a ban on Jewish-Gentile intermarriage and sexual relations, in line with a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.
On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a friend and political adherent of Kahane’s, opened fire on dozens of Palestinian Muslims while they were praying inside of the Ibrahimi Mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the city of Hebron. Goldstein’s assault took 29 lives and wounded 125 others–including many children–before he was beaten to death by survivors. Kahane’s movement expressed support for this attack and was subsequently outlawed in Israel.
After being outlawed as a political party, the group turned to terrorism and has been on the U.S. State Department’s official list of terrorist organizations since 1997 where it is listed as the “Qomemiyut Movement.” In 2013, when Qomemiyut was clearly listed as a terrorist group on that same government watch list, Friedman’s organization made the $12,000 donation–in shekelim–to the group.
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https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/trump-appointee-ran-charity-that-donated-to-middle-eastern-terrorist-group/
