At least five pro-Israel organizations were
harassed by Obama's IRS in 2009 and 2010 according to a report in the Washington Free Beacon. Some of them are still afraid to talk about it (Hat Tip:
Noah P).
One pro-Israel targets was HaYovel, which was featured prominently in the New York Times article.
Six months after the article was published, the IRS audited the
Nashville-based charity, which sends volunteers to work in vineyards
across the Green Line.
“We bookend that [New York Times] story. We were the first
[group mentioned]. They really kind of focused on us,” said HaYovel’s
founder Tommy Waller. “Then six months later we had an audit.”
Shari Waller, who cofounded HaYovel with her husband, said the couple
received a phone call from the IRS in December 2010. She said she was
not aware of anything in their tax documents that may have prompted the
audit, and added that the additional scrutiny came during the group’s
first five years of existence [deleted comma] when audits tend to be
rare.
“They contacted us the week of Christmas and told us they wanted to
audit us, right now,” she said. “The most unusual thing to me was they
contacted us at a time [that] for most people is a very hectic time, and
we had just returned from Israel. To think about taking calls for an
audit on the telephone—official business is usually conducted through
the mail.”
Tommy Waller said he found the timing of the audit “suspicious” and believes it may have been politically motivated.
“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,” he said. “That’s why we
suspected that we would have to deal with [an audit].”
Two other organizations—the American arm of an educational
institution that operates across the Green Line and the American arm of a
well-known Israeli charity that was mentioned in the New York Times article—say they were also audited.
Another organization that was criticized in multiple articles during
2009 and 2010 was audited last year. The organization, like many of the
groups with whom the Free Beacon spoke, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of political retaliation and concern that exposure would harm fundraising efforts.
Read the whole thing. The last time I heard anything like this was the 1970's....
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