The war in Gaza has strongly activated America’s hard Left, and nowhere more than in New York City. The local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America—which claims a congresswoman, the comptroller, and the public advocate, and about a dozen councilmembers and legislators as members—didn’t wait until Hamas had finished murdering people on October 7, 2023, before calling on New Yorkers to join a celebratory rally the next day in Times Square. Since then, the DSA and its allies across the Left have staged sit-ins, set up encampments, and committed increasingly violent actions around the city.
But Israel’s war of defense against Hamas has also breathed new life into a legislative measure in Albany called the Not on Our Dime! Act. The brainchild of Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Astoria, Queens, the proposal would forbid New York State nonprofits from “aiding or abetting activity in support of illegal Israeli settlements in violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 or illegal pursuant to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
According to the sponsors of the Not on Our Dime! Act, pro-Jewish organizations based in New York “masquerade as charities” and “funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to illegal settlement activities, while enjoying tax-exempt status in New York.” Mamdani proclaims that letting Israel donations go untaxed is the cause of limited library hours for his constituents and that New York State taxpayers are “subsidizing atrocities.”
Mamdani stresses the idea that public money is being spent to push Palestinians out of their homes or to fight the war in Gaza. Advocates toss around figures ranging from $60 million annually to hundreds of millions of dollars, as though New York State is itself handing out these sums to Israel-focused charities. The figures bandied about, though, are total donations that may be deducted from gross income as charitable contributions; it’s the “lost” tax revenue that Mamdani counts as public money. New York’s actual missing revenue would be some small fraction of the total amount advocates are asserting.
And what about the actual pork that Albany and New York City routinely shovel into the maw of politically connected nonprofits? The Arab American Association of New York, for example, cofounded by noted activist Linda Sarsour, has received millions of dollars in city and state funding. The group cites “Advocacy and Civic Engagement” as a primary function of its operation, stressing that it works “in solidarity with coalitions in New York and beyond to end hate violence, fight for community-based alternatives to policing, expand immigrant rights, expand voter engagement in immigrant and POC communities, and more.” In other words, the association operates as a political organization, contrary to the legal mission of a federally chartered charity. The AAANY is listed as a legislative supporter on the Not on Our Dime! website, and the group also cosponsored the October 21, 2023, Flood Brooklyn for Palestine protest. This “national day of action” involved blockades of major avenues and bridges, violence against police, and dozens of arrests amid calls for the elimination of Israel.
VOCAL-NY has similarly received millions of dollars in funding from the city and state. The group advertises itself as “a statewide grassroots membership organization that builds power among low-income people” through “community organizing, leadership development, advocacy, direct services, and direct action.” In fewer words, it shows up at protests for radical causes. “Not on our dime, not in our time!” the group tweeted at a rally in February. “We must end the funding of genocide in #Gaza. Until Palestine is free, we will not be free!”
The Legal Aid Society provides indigent defense services for New Yorkers. It receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the city to fulfill the state’s constitutionally mandated duty to offer lawyers for poor defendants. While Legal Aid, technically a charity, has refrained from participating in anti-Israel action—though the union representing its lawyers expresses solidarity with the protests—the organization regularly behaves as an activist group. It has sued Mayor Eric Adams for trying to limit the amount of time that the city was required to house newly arrived migrants. Yet Legal Aid is effectively a city agency; if the city didn’t outsource indigent defense, Legal Aid wouldn’t exist.
If we are going to start policing organizations that offer charity to disfavored nations and empowering victims of foreign wars to sue local nonprofits (another stipulation of the Not on Our Dime! Act), then it seems reasonable to start limiting the money that the state gives directly to rabble-rousing groups here at home. If groups like the AAANY or VOCAL-NY want to run wild for Palestine, then, to borrow a phrase, let them do it on their own dime.
Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
