According
to the Wall Street Journal, the Internal Revenue Service used its power
to attack pro-Israel groups. While the WSJ article is (
free for you) subscriber
only,
here is the gist of it.
Not only did the IRS target politically conservative groups, they also
sought to deny tax exempt authorizations to groups who, quoting the
Wall Street Journal, “whose missions might conflict with Administration
policies. The IRS’s ‘Be on the Lookout’ list that November [2010]
also
included red flags for groups referring to ‘disputed territories.’”
The Journal goes on to report that Jewish groups seeking normal tax
exempt status received questionnaires with ideologically oriented
questions that are eerily familiar in their nature to the types of
political inquiries made to tea party applicants.
According to the publication, “one questionnaire we’ve seen from the
IRS to another Jewish group applying for tax-exempt status asked, ‘Does
your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?’ and
‘Describe your organization’s religious belief system toward the land
of Israel.’”
Now that we know that the IRS engaged in litmus testing of applicants
based upon their support of Israel’s right to exist as a pre-determiner
on whether a Jewish group should have received 501 (c) status, the
Obama Administration can no longer cling to the notion that they were
merely focusing upon conservative political groups.
The bald and ugly truth is that Obama’s IRS was being used for
political purposes before even the Supreme Court Citizens United
decision, and before the term “tea party group” was even included in
the agency’s black list. As the Journal reports, “emails uncovered by
the House Ways and Means Committee show that the IRS and State
Department were conferring in 2009 about pro-Israel groups like Z
Street and considering arguments to deny their tax-exempt applications.”
This disclosure should frighten every American as it is evidence that...
