CAIR-NJ 3 Calls: 1. Support Sanders Resolution to Block $20B for Israel Genocide and Total War 2. Sign on Letter: House GOP Must Stop Attempting to Misuse IRS to Pursue Witch-hunts of Muslim, Palestinian, and Jewish Human Rights Groups 3. Share with CAIR your Oct 7 Protest Plans
Support Sanders Resolution to Block $20B for Israel Genocide and Total War
Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a Joint Resolution of Disapproval to block more than $20 billion in illegal U.S. weapons sales to Israel. Send a pre-drafted email to NJ Senators to demand they vote YES to Sen. Sanders’ resolution when it comes to the Senate floor for consideration.
TAKE ACTION: https://cair-nj.org/nosale
[Wed. Oct 2nd Sign-on Deadline]
Greetings of Peace:
Please consider joining CAIR and more groups in the coming days in a group sign-on letter addressed to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith expressing our strongest condemnation of their “recent baseless demand that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) violate the law by revoking the nonprofit tax-exempt status of fifteen American Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and foundation organizations that advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”
SIGN ON LETTER LINK: https://forms.gle/Jog9BcTKDw46gv5D7
The deadline to sign the group letter is Wednesday, October 2nd, End of Day.
Letter endorsers can anticipate receiving an accompanying template press release and sample tweets.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Nancy Elbassiouny
CAIR-NJ Government Affairs Manager
— Statement & Sign on Form Copied Below —
WORKING DRAFT LETTER SUBJECT TO MINOR CHANGES:
October 3, 2024
The Honorable Mike Johnson
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
H-232, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Jason Smith
Chair of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee
1139 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
RE: House GOP Must Stop Attempting to Misuse IRS to Pursue Witch-hunts of Muslim, Palestinian, and Jewish Human Rights Groups
Dear Speaker Johnson and Chairman Smith:
On behalf of the undersigned organizations, we write to express our strongest condemnation of Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith’s recent baseless demand that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) violate the law by revoking the nonprofit tax-exempt status of fifteen American Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and foundation organizations that advocacy for Palestinian human rights.
Speaker Johnson, on September 25, your office tagged many of these 15 nonprofit groups on a social media post on X and declared that the Republican Party caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives and Chairman Smith “are putting you on notice. Your tax-exempt status should be revoked immediately.” The day before, Chairman Smith, in a blatant abuse of your position and authority, referred these American organizations to the IRS for revocation of their nonprofit tax status, despite providing no evidence of criminal wrongdoing or any other basis to revoke their status.
This blatant misuse of government power in an attempt to intimidate and silence those advocating for the human rights of Palestinians is deeply concerning, and the Americans opposed to the genocide in Gaza have no intention of being silenced by these cheap, McCarthyist tactics.
This bad faith referral to the IRS is not based on any legitimate concerns of criminal conduct by these organizations. Instead, it stems from your personal discomfort with their constitutionally protected First Amendment activities—political speech, organizing, and protests by American Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and Jewish groups. Your blatant abuse of authority to punish these groups for exercising their legal rights is an unconstitutional attempt to suppress dissent and stifle calls for accountability over Israel’s war crimes and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and recent atrocities against the Lebanese people.
Speaker Johnson, rather than weaponizing the IRS against Muslim, Palestinian, Jewish, and progressive groups, you should focus on rooting out bigotry within your own party. Just this week, one of your Republican colleagues, Rep. Clay Higgins, made hateful comments on social media, referring to Haitian immigrants as “thugs” and “slapstick gangsters” and telling them to “get their a** out of our country.”
Such xenophobic remarks are not isolated incidents. They are part of a broader pattern anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, and anti-Arab bigotry propagated by members of your party, including Republican Senator John Kennedy, who recently attacked an Arab-American Muslim advocate during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, telling her to “hide her head in a bag” and accusing her of supporting foreign terrorist groups—repeating an anti-Arab and Islamophobic trope that has been frequently used by members of the Republican House and Senate caucuses and has no place in civil discourse, let alone congressional proceedings.
In May, several of our organizations condemned similar attempts by Republican U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer and Republican Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, who sought to misuse government resources by requesting that the Department of the Treasury disclose any Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)—even though we believe no such reports exist—submitted by banks concerning more than 20 American organizations. Some of these groups are also being targeted in your current referral to the IRS for investigation and termination of their nonprofit tax status. These targeted groups include prominent foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Soros Foundation, as well as Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian American student groups, civil rights organizations, human rights groups, and advocacy organizations that support Palestinian human rights.
These efforts too—lacking any legitimate congressional purpose—are part of a broader, consistently dishonest, and desperate campaign in Congress to shield Israel from legitimate criticism while smearing American students and advocates exercising their constitutional rights.
Furthermore, we categorically oppose recent congressional efforts to advance legislation such as H.R. 6408, S. 4136, and now H.R. 9495, which would grant the Secretary of the Treasury expansive and unchecked discretionary authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofit organizations based on arbitrary or classified determinations that they are “terrorist-supporting organizations”—the very action you are now urging the IRS to take absent the enactment of such legally questionable measures.
These legislative proposals undermine fundamental due process protections and would empower the government to target civil rights, humanitarian, and advocacy organizations based on their political positions, without providing meaningful opportunities to contest these opaque and potentially politically motivated determinations. This overreach poses a direct threat to the constitutional rights of any American nonprofit or advocacy organization, whether conservative, moderate, or liberal in orientation.
These House GOP efforts to involve federal tax and financial agencies in baseless investigations are clear political stunts, reminiscent of the McCarthy era. They dangerously escalate the misuse of government power for partisan purposes. We expect the IRS and Treasury, bound by the Constitution and U.S. law, to disregard these requests, which lack legal standing and legitimate purpose.
It is also worth noting the inconsistency in your position. For years, Republicans in Congress have vocally complained about the IRS, DOJ, FBI, DHS, and other federal agencies for supposedly investigating conservative groups for their First Amendment-protected speech and political activities. Now, you are using those same tactics against Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and Jewish organizations advocating for Palestinian human rights. The hypocrisy is as glaring as it is disturbing.
Contrary to all your claims, the American student-led protests and nonprofit organizations you seek to undermine are not antisemitic, nor are they controlled by foreign governments. Many of these protests are led by Jewish Americans who believe in a moral obligation to oppose genocide, wherever it occurs. The tragic reality is that over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, with an additional 630 Lebanese civilians slaughtered in the past week alone. These protests are a demand for justice and an end to these atrocities, not an attack on Jewish identity.
We will continue to fight these politically motivated attacks, and we stand ready to defend any organization targeted by your McCarthyistic tactics. We will not be intimidated by these politically motivated stunts, and we call on every member of Congress to rebuke and reject this assault on the fundamental rights of American advocacy groups.
We urge your offices to stop engaging in political witch hunts and instead focus on addressing the real issues facing our nation.
Sincerely,
[SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS WILL BE LISTED BELOW]
Nancy Elbassiouny, MA | Government Affairs Manager
CAIR – NJ
570 Broad Street, Suite 703
Newark, NJ 07102
Office: 908-668-5900 x 223
Cell: 908-430-9123
Cair-nj.org
CAIR is preparing a post that will list all the Palestine protests happening on October 7, and we want to make sure we include as many events as possible. Would your organization happen to know of any protests or actions planned for that day? CONTACT CAIR-NJ
