Robert Inlakesh reports on how U.S. Congress plans to target critics of Israel.
U.S. Capitol. (White House/Adam Schultz)
By Robert Inlakesh
MintPress News
A coalition of civil rights groups is sounding the alarm over three proposed bills that, they argue, represent an audacious attempt to stifle dissent and curb free expression in the United States. The legislation — H.R.6408, H.R.9495 and S.4136 — claims to combat terrorism by targeting the tax-exempt status of nonprofits deemed to be in violation.
But critics insist the true aim is more insidious: to suppress organizations that are critical of Israel. Championed by lawmakers with deep ties to AIPAC, the bills, if passed, could pave the way for an unprecedented crackdown on dissent under the guise of national security.
While federal laws already prohibit supporting proscribed terrorist organizations, these bills would expand the government’s reach over nonprofits under the appearance of countering such threats.
H.R.6408 and H.R.9495 have already passed the House of Representatives, with S.4136 poised to add further amendments to the legislative effort. Critics have dubbed H.R.9495 the “nonprofit killer bill” and it is drawing sharp condemnation from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
In a letter signed by over 300 nonprofits, the ACLU called on Congress to reject the legislation, warning of its potential to erode constitutional rights and empower government overreach.
CAIR echoed these concerns in a press release, labeling the bills “undemocratic” and accusing them of undermining fundamental freedoms. With growing opposition, the fate of these controversial bills may hinge on the ability of civil rights advocates to mobilize public and legislative resistance.
Critics argue that the legislative push embodied by H.R.9495 and H.R.6408 hand unprecedented authority to the U.S. Treasury Secretary, enabling them to unilaterally revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofit organizations accused of “supporting terrorism.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) warns that this could be done using classified evidence without formal charges or sufficient opportunity for organizations to defend themselves.
Despite this criticism, both bills have cleared Congress, with H.R.6408 — billed by its supporters as a response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel — receiving less attention but facing similar backlash. The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee contends the legislation creates “virtually no limitations or accountability” on the Treasury secretary’s discretion, allowing decisions based on viewpoints that differ from those of the administration in power.
Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a Neoconservative Washington-based think tank, has claimed that pro-Palestinian student protesters take “guidance and support” from American nonprofit organizations.
Columbia student pro-Palestine encampment on April 23, a day after a raid by the NYPD. (Pamela Drew, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Schanzer claims that one such charity, American Muslims in Palestine, carries a “striking resemblance to the Hamas charities that were dismantled here more than a decade ago.” Schanzer was likely referring to the Holy Land Foundation, who were subjected to a highly politicized trial that led to their designation as a terrorist organization in the post-9/11 era.
Republican Congressman David Kustoff, the sponsor of H.R.6408, has received nearly $230,000 from pro-Israel lobby groups. A vocal advocate for legislating away anti-Semitism, Kustoff’s initiatives have drawn condemnation for silencing criticism of Israel on college campuses. After the bill’s passage, Kustoff claimed, “Recent reports indicate there are U.S.-based nonprofits suspected of providing support and funding to terrorist groups.”
Senators John Cornyn and Angus King, beneficiaries of significant donations from pro-Israel donors, introduced S.4136, a bill that proposes suspending the tax-exempt status of organizations accused of terrorism support. Cornyn has received at least $488,888 from pro-Israeli donors, and Senator Angus King’s top donor from 2019-2024 was AIPAC.
Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, who has received over $178,000 from pro-Israel donors, sponsored H.R.9495, which opponents have labeled the “nonprofit killer bill,” warning it could lead to government overreach and stifled dissent.
If the U.S. Treasury Department chooses to follow the advice of AIPAC, it could usher in an era of unprecedented scrutiny for any charity critical of Israel. Historically, targeting such organizations, along with universities, rights groups, and media outlets, required the cumbersome step of designating them as terrorist entities. The proposed legislation, however, threatens to streamline this process, turning what was once a legal labyrinth — a process of checks and balances ensuring that Americans’ civil rights are protected — into a fast track for silencing dissent.
This shift dovetails with President-elect Donald Trump’s fiery rhetoric about cracking down on university campuses that allow protests against Israel to occur. The bills — crafted primarily by Republican lawmakers — seem designed to dovetail with Trump’s ideological crusade, poised to gain traction under his return to the presidency. Trump’s promises to take aim at institutions deemed insufficiently supportive of Israel loom large over this legislative push.
Central to these concerns is Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, a hedge-fund manager with a storied and, at times, controversial career. As George Soros’s former top investor, Bessent made waves in 2014 when he reportedly threatened to resign over the Open Society Foundations’ proposal to divest from companies tied to Israel. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bessent’s ultimatum effectively quashed the idea.
The fears surrounding this legislative shift are not entirely speculative. Recent government actions, such as the designation of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as a terrorist organization, have already showcased the state’s willingness to stretch the bounds of such classifications.
With these new bills poised to pass, critics worry that the target list will grow to encompass not just pro-Palestinian nonprofits but also any group that dares to criticize Israel. For many, the specter of an all-encompassing crackdown looms, threatening the very foundations of free expression and dissent.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show “Palestine Files.” Director of “Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe.” Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
This article is from MPN.news, an award-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for their newsletter.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
ALL guilty by association and their silence. America needs to start practicing what it so assiduously preaches. The hypocrisy couldn’t be any bigger.
“All quiet on the western front”…
US Politicians need to register as foreign agents, and then(*hit caned).
Silence can not be legislated. What happens in such times is that the dissent moves underground. Or more underground, as this is always a relative move. Its not like this is the first government to think this way. Its pretty standard for the control-freak type of mind, especially the simple ones. So, this has been tried many times before in various ways, but it don’t work. And, if you stop and think about it (realizing of course that thinking is not a strong suit for modern American politicians) it can’t work.
Traditionally, this only drives the dissent deeper into the underground. The meetings become less public. The left might even learn how to work offline. There might be fewer protests in the streets, which makes the control freaks happy. But, in a society that really wants to resist, the resistance has actually grown when forced underground because that turns more people against the control freaks. The good news is that sometimes this creates a pressure boiler situation that actually does lead to some real change in a society, at least for a short while.
But, that sort of real change would scare the bleep out of the Democrats, so they’ll end up their usual role of trying to suppress and control populism and popular movements. All of the Dems to the right of the Progressives, and a fair number of the Progressives, would back Trump as the ‘lessor evil’ to real change. Remember, most of the Democratic Socialists of America oppose actual socialism.
There is no actual “left” in this country, and there hasn’t been for some time. There is only the extreme right and the less extreme but still very right, The Retrumplicans, The Rhinos, and the various Dems who are the right disguised as the left. It is a dog and pony show. But at least the Dems used to put on a show. Used to at least act like we had a dog in the fight. Now, they have just turned coat. Both sides are essential, no matter which side you agree with. Without the two sides to balance each other out, you will do a nose dive straight into the ground. And that is exactly what we are now doing. It just doesn’t seem appropriate with a genocide and peo starving to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving, but if it were, you know I would. Thanks.
This is another example of the Israel lobby’s power.
H.R. 6408 had only 7 co-sponsors, but it passed the House anyway, on orders from AIPAC. The bill had only 11 nay votes, all Democrat except for Thomas Massie (R-KY).
H.R. 9495 had only 4 co-sponsors, but it passed the House anyway, on orders from AIPAC. There were 184 nay votes, all Democrat except for Thomas Massie (R-KY).
The purpose of these bills is to crush all opposition to the genocide.
“Nothing to see here, folks, just move along…”
Actually, I’m silently screaming at how our taken-for-granted expectations and Constitutionally-defined rights are being so readily, and especially steadily, eroded away.
These ones might even be said to be occuring undercover as the daily distractional detritus from ongoing outbreaks of humanity’s violence becomes more and more normalized as we reap the daily harvest of news from select areas around our planet.
“Normalized.” “Habituated.” “Unremarkable.” And all too soon unnoticed? Why is it I feel this latest effort by “the Lobby” is part of a pre-planned exercise in what appears to be only further, deeper, harder repression to come in the days ahead?
The purpose for the First Amendment was to prevent the government from punishing or suppressing any oral [speech] or printing [press] that might expose the government’s narrative, or a public statement, to be in error or deliberatively false.
U.S. sailors who survived the sustained the 1967 Israeli military airborne and gunboat attack on the unarmed USS Liberty on the high seas, with airborne US Naval fighters craft ordered to return to base while their fellow seamen were under attack, were threatened with lose of pensions and other punishment if they revealed the attack.
To suggest Israel is an ally of the U.S. is a fraud.
Yes, Trump will stifle dissent on Israel as the Twitter Files showed Biden did on Ukraine and Covid. The democrats shut down dissenting opinions and will back up Trump’s silencing of Palestinian support.
Perhaps it’s time for a name change – to The United States of Israel, even if it isn’t really united.
Usrael.
When free speech is criminalized, terrorism has come home to roost. This rogue government has no allegiance to the Constitution.
It’s interesting how some of the biggest proponents of free-speech when it comes to admittedly sometimes delusional and kooky campus woke protesters are some of the biggest cheerleaders for suppression against Israel’s critics. I’m thinking of the disgusting Ben Shapiro types.
It’s interesting how when it comes to pro-Israel interests and Zionists power, everything is upturned, everything is different, except one thing: you can bet your house that the elites will of course favor the Israel lobby and Israeli apologists above all else.
This is a very difficult issue because ALL parts of the power-elites seem utterly committed to Israel at minimum. Many also are determined to ethnically cleanse Gaza and W. Bank so a national “debate” would get in the way. The power-elites need to have some cohesion about something and Israel is that project for them. I think dramatic repression will be on the way and would have been even if Trump had lost. The movement in the past couple of decades has been an inexorable political movement towards authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and (my preference) neo-feudalism. There is no future in what we might have defined decades ago as liberal democracy–today the whole definition of of liberal democracy is the choice of those three future possibilities. As part of this process, there has been a long term cultural movement towards aggressive ignorance, emotionalism, and fantasy on the part of the general population. This is not a conspiracy, though conspiracies are involved, but mainly a natural historical movement that has been inevitable since the end of the Cold War. This is the fault, if there is one, of our worship of consumer culture and 24/7 entertainment.
It’s fascinating how some of the biggest proponents of free speech and Constitutional protections when it comes to admittedly sometimes delusional and kooky campus woke protesters are some of the biggest cheerleaders for suppression against Israel’s critics. I’m thinking of the disgusting Ben Shapiro types.
It’s interesting how when it comes to pro-Israel interests and Zionist power, everything is upturned, everything is different, except one thing that you can set your watch to: the elites will of course favor the Israel lobby and Israeli apologists above all else.
Can’t this be challenged in court. based on the fact that there’s no legal definition of terrorist/terrorism?
Does anyone in America dare to question Israel?
Free Palestine and Lebanon and Syria!