Canadians are subsidizing an ever more authoritarian movement promoting a holocaust in Gaza. In the latest outrage that’s come to light, a vigilante group intimidating students in Toronto has been allowed to register as a charity and therefore offer donors tax credits.
Recently, a complaint was delivered to the Canada Revenue Agency asking it to audit Magen Herut Canada (MHC). Herut’s roots are with the pre-Israeli state Irgun terror group. In 1948, Albert Einstein and other prominent Jewish intellectuals labeled Herut “a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.” In the late 1980s Herut became the Likud party.
MHC operates as a vigilante force. Its members recently descended on the University of Toronto to intimidate students opposing the genocide. They’ve also provided “security” at pro-Israel events.
MHC members usually have experience in policing, security or the military and the group offers free workshops of Krav Maga, a training used by the Israeli military. They publicly fundraise for protective gear and to pay members’ security fees.
MHC states openly that it works closely with private security firm JFORCE, which protects Israel events, protests and dignitaries. It’s unusual for a registered charity to have close ties to a private corporation since taxpayer subsidized charities aren’t allowed to underwrite for-profit firms.
While an egregious example, MHC is only one of many publicly subsidized authoritarian groups promoting Israeli violence.
A complaint was recently sent to the Canada Revenue Agency concerning the subsidies received by Honest Reporting Canada (Israel Gives via Canada Charity Partners). The anti-Palestinian media flak organization seeks to intimidate journalists, especially of colour, who expose Israeli crimes.
NGO Monitor is also granting donors tax credits through two different charities (Canada Charity Partners). It has campaigned recently to ban the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories from speaking in Canada. So have Hillels, Chabad Houses and other charities. Registered charity Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center has also been seeking to ban grassroots Palestinian solidarity groups and suppress criticism of Israel’s holocaust. Funded by Canada’s Jewish Federations, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is also pushing to shutter events, mobilize the police and ban organizations challenging Canadian complicity with Israel’s genocide. Taking the fascist Zionist ethos a step further with its “7-point plan” to criminalize criticism of Israel’s holocaust, B’nai Brith operates multiple charitable foundations (it’s difficult to assess how the money transfers between its different arms).
Many private schools promoting Jewish supremacy are also registered charities. On X, UBC PHD student Shoshana Schwebel recently posted, “my Zionist high school in Toronto literally brought in IDF recruiters multiple times a year to incentivize us to join as teens. So, not only was our education largely centred around dehumanizing Palestinians, it actively worked to have us kill them upon graduation.” Schwebel added, “We were offered special scholarships if we joined the IOF straight out of high school. I’ve since learned that’s illegal in Canada, but of course nobody applies the law to Zionists.”
In another message on X Simi Silver noted that the Ottawa Chabad House was raising funds to supply ‘lone soldiers’ with military equipment. Silver asked for assistance for a friend fighting in Lebanon facing bureaucratic obstacles to getting a new bulletproof vest, writing “All donations go directly to his equipment, through the Ottawa Chabad House (with a tax receipt). Specify ‘IDF Gear’ in the donation note!”
But assisting foreign militaries contravenes CRA rules. Yet that’s the HESEG Foundation’s raison d’etre and important to other Zionist charities. Dozens of charities also directly assist West Bank colonies in violation of CRA rules. It’s also against international law. On October 18 the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel released its “Legal analysis and recommendations on implementation of the International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion, Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
The International Commission of Inquiry’s Position Paper states: “With respect to non-profit or non-governmental organizations, States must carefully review any organization that is financially or politically supporting the unlawful occupation. States shall not give support to these organizations, for example through allowing the organization to have tax-exempt status or providing tax deductibility for donations to the organization and must ensure that financial contributions to support the unlawful occupation, including settlements and settlers, cease.”
A broad reading of the UN mandate could ensnare maybe a 100 registered Canadian charities for “financially or politically supporting the unlawful occupation.”
In other words, despite this country’s claim of supporting a rules based international order, Canada’s current tax policies go against the International Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations.
According to charity law expert Mark Blumberg, Canadian charities sent $362 million to projects in Israel in 2022. That doesn’t include hundreds of millions of dollars more annually — probably a billion dollars — raised by groups promoting Israeli apartheid and genocide domestically.
The Canada Revenue Agency needs to rein in the authoritarian, genocide promoting, charity network. It can start by immediately suspending Magen Herut Canada’s ability to provide donors with tax receipts.
Please take a minute to ask the CRA to immediately suspend Magen Herut Canada’s ability to grant donors’ tax credits.
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