Glen Stellmacher
Truthout / December 4, 2024
Israel Heritage Foundation has links to supporters of policies that threaten Palestinians and civil society groups.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a monumental new tool of repression, the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act,” otherwise known as H.R.9495. The bill will now head to the Senate for a vote.
The bill would allow the U.S. Treasury Secretary, soon to be appointed by incoming president Donald Trump, to unilaterally designate any U.S. nonprofit entity as a “terrorist supporting organization” and immediately revoke the organization’s IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status without any requirement for an explanation, evidence, due process or ability to cure. According to The Intercept, a broad coalition of organizations believe the goal of the bill is to suppress free speech in support of Palestine and in opposition to genocide.
Curiously, the MAGA sponsor of the bill, New York Rep. Claudia Tenney, has personally received an award from U.S. 501(c)(3) organization the Israel Heritage Foundation (IHF), with very close ties to Israeli government officials and numerous powerful American Zionist organizers and institutions, according to public documents, photos and videos posted online by the IHF.
Tenney isn’t alone: Trump has also twice received awards from the group, according to Israeli right-wing news outlet Arutz Sheva, and several Trump allies, including incoming Cabinet picks, have spoken at events hosted by the nonprofit, according to videos of the events the IHF posted online. A Prism analysis of these public records raises questions about the group’s connections to U.S. officials pushing strongly pro-Israel policies that target Palestinians and anti-genocide advocates.
According to a press release from her office on April 5, Tenney accepted a bespoke “Cup of Blessings Award” at an intimate private reception in midtown Manhattan hosted by the IHF, which describes itself on its website as “America’s Preeminent Bipartisan Pro-Israel Organization.”
“I am very thankful to the Israel Heritage Foundation and [Executive Director] Rabbi David Katz for bestowing this tremendous honour on me and my fantastic team,” Tenney said in the press release. “As I told the Rabbi and audience, I will always stand with the Jewish community and the State of Israel because the truth is the only path to peace. I will continue to speak out against the scourge of anti-Semitism that is resurging in America and will advocate for America’s greatest ally in the Middle East – the State of Israel.”
Congresswoman Tenney’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The IHF told Prism in an email that it honours those “who are strong supporters of the Jewish community and Israel like Representative Tenney.” The nonprofit said Tenney introduced the legislation “because it aligns with her views.”
The IHF has regularly welcomed U.S. officials who strongly back Israel in rhetoric and proposed policy. On numerous occasions, the IHF has held events featuring current Senator Tommy Tuberville, former CIA director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence and President-elect Donald Trump. Each event marketed seats for up to $1,800 each, VIPs at $5,000, “special seating” for $10,000 each, and up to $25,000 dollars to “co-host” according to event flyers posted on the organization’s website, Instagram account, X account, and YouTube channel.
As nonprofits that have taken stances against Israel’s internationally recognized genocide in Gaza fear repercussions under the Stop Terror-Financing Act, the IHF has demonstrated a connection to several lawmakers backing the bill.
The IHF’s Instagram account shows numerous meetings with members of Congress who voted to pass H.R.9495 on Nov. 21, including Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden, Oklahoma Rep. Kevin Hern, Missouri Rep. Mark Alford, New York Reps. Brandon Williams and Anthony D’Esposito, California Reps. Kevin Kiley and John Duarte, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, and Texas Rep. Beth Van Duyne. The IHF has also met with New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, who voted to pass H.R.9495 on its first failed House vote but abstained from the vote on Nov. 21.
H.R.9495 previously failed a floor vote in the House of Representatives on Nov. 12. Afterward, the House Committee on Rules passed a resolution that moved the bill to the full House for a second vote, eliminating any opportunity to consider new amendments, where it passed 219-184 with the help of 15 democrats.
At the same time, controversial Israeli government officials have also found an appreciative audience in the IHF. In August 2023, the American nonprofit hosted a joint event with Arutz Sheva in Jerusalem featuring Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has been sharply criticized even by U.S. leaders. In a letter addressed to President Joe Biden in October, 88 U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives wrote that Smotrich has “weaponized his authority” in order to “secure Israel’s largest seizure of land in the West Bank in three decades and enable settlement construction that even violates Israeli law. He has authorized an increase in demolitions of Palestinian homes, leading to the displacement of more than 2,000 Palestinians, over 1,000 of whom are children.”
The letter continues, “As a key leader of the settler movement he has also used toxic and inciting rhetoric in public and private, shielded instigators in the West Bank from accountability, called for a Palestinian town to be “wiped out,” and repeatedly voiced his public support for annexing the West Bank.”
In a statement to Prism, the IHF wrote, “We are aware of this outrageous partisan letter that advocates for the first time in U.S. history for the sanctioning of Democratically elected members of a Democracy and in this case cabinet members…It is obvious these type of likely illegal sanctions will properly be ended by the Trump Administration.”
The IHF went on to note that Biden has not sanctioned any Palestinian Authority official and said that the letter “epitomizes that a strong minority of Democrats have moved against Israel and as a result, Jewish voters are moving away from the Democratic party.”
At the IHF event, Smotrich extended a proposition to attendees, which included Trump’s current pick for Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, according to Arutz Sheva.
“I want to make a ‘deal’ with you,” Smotrich told conference attendees, according to the article. “We, MK [Simcha] Rothman, Minister [Idit] Silman and others, will take care of some ‘small’ things that we have to take care of, but you will spread the truth and the light all over the world about the Israeli success story, and help us to harness more and more partners who recognize this and support Israel unconditionally — support the historical and biblical right of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, support a united Jerusalem, and support our right to settle anywhere in the Land of Israel.”
Arutz Sheva’s report then states, “Minister Smotrich finished his suggestion in Hebrew, then switched to English and asked the guests: ‘We made a deal?’ The audience cheered in agreement.”
Tax laws around politics
The organization is registered as the 501(c)(3) Congregation Ayshel Avraham “doing business as” Israel Heritage Foundation.
U.S. tax law limits 501(c)(3) lobbying and “absolutely” prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations from promoting political candidates, but Prism found multiple examples of speakers at IHF events doing precisely that in videos of events the group posted on YouTube.
Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman told the IHF at one event with Republican congressional candidate Alison Esposito that they should delete his remarks from the recorded video if the IHF wanted to retain its 501(c)(3) status with the IRS.
Video from the event shows that Blakeman talked about how he and New York Congressman Anthony D’Esposito went outside of their representative jurisdictions to Columbia University to demand that anti-genocide and pro-Palestine protesters be arrested.
“I’m not gonna talk about politics tonight because that would be wrong,” Blakeman continued.
“Wouldn’t it be shameful of all of us if we woke up election day and she [Alison Esposito] lost by this much,” he said, pinching his fingers together, “because we didn’t do what we were supposed to do to get her elected as an advocate for Israel and as a supporter of Israel Heritage Foundation.”
At another IHF event, an Israeli government official gifted Blakeman a replica gold coin according to an event recording posted on the group’s YouTube channel.
Blakeman’s office did not respond to Prism’s multiple requests for comment.
At an IHF dinner event in July 2023 at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, numerous speakers advocated for electing Trump for president, with Trump telling the crowd, “If we don’t win, Israel is in big trouble,” according to a video of the event posted on the group’s YouTube channel.
Joe Frager, the IHF’s executive vice president, told attendees that the “Israel Heritage Foundation advocates for the land of Israel, especially in Judea and Samaria and even more especially for sovereignty in Area C,” which comprises about 61% of Occupied Palestinian Territory in the West Bank.
Smotrich has said he aims to work with the incoming Trump administration to annex the entirety of the West Bank under Israeli control.
In addition to connections with Huckabee, the IHF has maintained a relationship with Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth previously told a group gathered for an IHF dinner with Mike Pompeo that “without Joe Frager, I would not have the passion that I do for the State of Israel, for the sovereignty of Judea and Samaria,” according to a video posted on the group’s YouTube channel. The IHF also hosted another “limited” event with Hegseth on January 6, 2024.
In a statement provided to Prism, the IHF wrote that whether Hegseth and Huckabee “have been paid by the IHF is confidential but [the] IHF is legally allowed to have paid them to come to events.”
According to a YouTube video the IHF posted from the event, Hegseth also thanked Jonathan Burkan, who serves as the IHF’s honorary chairman and is also a Morgan Stanley wealth manager, Trump fundraiser, and chair of the New York Republican Party.
“He manages my money now,” Hegseth said at the event.
Pro-Israel policies
U.S. officials who have attended events hosted by the pro-Israel nonprofit have often expressed pro-Israel opinions and pushed pro-Israel policies. Some of these include erasing the recognition of Palestinian land.
Tenney, for example, introduced the “RECOGNIZING Judea and Samaria Act” in February 2024, which would require all official U.S. government documents to stop using the term “West Bank” to describe Occupied Palestinian Territory. Instead, the bill mandates the region be referred to by the biblical name “Judea and Samaria.” After introducing the bill, Tenney was given the Cup of Blessings award by the IHF.
The International Court of Justice issued an opinion in July 2024 stating that “Israel must immediately cease all new settlement activity” within the Occupied Palestinian Territories and that “Israel is also under an obligation to provide full reparation for the damage caused by its
internationally wrongful acts,” including immediately returning all land and property illegally seized by Israel since 1967.
Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor on track to become Trump’s ambassador to Israel, identifies as an evangelical Zionist and has talked about following passages in the Bible over international law.
“It was God’s choice to select the Jewish people for this territory … Those boundaries are nearly 4,000 years old, and none of us have a right to change them,” Huckabee told the IHF at a $5,000/person dinner event in 2022, posted on YouTube by Arutz Sheva. “I believe that I have an obligation to God.”
Eyal Weizman, director of the U.K.-based state and corporate violence research agency Forensic Architecture, which recently published an 827-page report describing Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, told Prism about the dangers of Zionist efforts to rename Palestinian lands.
“The denial of place begins by renaming and remapping. In early 1949, Ben-Gurion gathered a group of historians, surveyors, and biblical scholars and asked them to replace Palestinian place names on the map of recently cleansed Palestine. The new Hebrew Map overwrote one geography with another,” Weizman said in an email statement. “Renaming is also erasing, and erasure on the map is often followed by erasure on the ground.”
This story was originally published at Prism – an independent and nonprofit newsroom led by journalists of colour; we report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice
Glen Stellmacher is a licensed architect; he is a graduate and former lecturer at the University of Washington
