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IRS urged to suspend nonprofit status of UNRWA American charitable arm

“It is no longer debatable; UNRWA is Hamas,” wrote the International Legal Forum and the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

Daniel Werfel
Daniel Werfel, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. Credit: U.S. Department of Justice via Wikimedia Commons.
Daniel Werfel
Daniel Werfel, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. Credit: U.S. Department of Justice via Wikimedia Commons.

Daniel Werfel, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, received a joint letter calling for the suspension of the charity certification for a top funder of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, better known as UNRWA.

UNRWA USA is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides support for humanitarian work associated with the U.N. agency.

“It is no longer debatable; UNRWA is Hamas. Nor is it merely a ‘few rotten apples’ as some politicians and pundits have tried to suggest,” wrote the International Legal Forum and the National Jewish Advocacy Center. “The entire organization is a systematic incubator of hate, incitement and terror.”

Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, told JNS that the groups were “requesting in light of the recent evidence connecting UNRWA staff to the Oct 7 Hamas attacks and suspension of funds by a growing number of countries, including the U.S., that the exempt tax status of UNRWA USA be immediately suspended, pending an investigation, and then revoked.”

Ostrovsky told JNS, “At $3.8 million, UNRWA USA is the largest private donor to UNRWA in the United States.”

The letter stated that “providing support for an organization that incites and commits murderous violence while harboring members of U.S. designated terrorist groups that specialize in killing Jews and that call for Jewish genocide is obviously against both the law and public policy. UNRWA does all of those things, and UNRWA USA supports them.”

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