Obama’s anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism reigned at the IRS from 2010- 2017.

How one courageous proactive journalist took on the IRS over this issue – and won.

by Phyllis Chesler

After a “long, lonely and expensive seven year struggle,” one that she alone, on behalf of Z STREET bore, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z STREET has just won a significant legal victory which grants her organization tax-exempt status and definitively exposes Obama’s IRS as obsessively anti-Israel.

Ironically, Marcus founded Z STREET in 2009 in order to “educate Americans about the Middle East and Israel’s defense against terror.”

The Z Street application was at first delayed, then frozen, because the IRS claimed as a defense, that Israel was viewed as a “terrorist entity,” and a country “with terrorism.”

Many of us suspected that Obama’s administration had politicized Homeland Security, the DOJ, the FBI, and the American relationship to the United Nations in ways that favored Islamism, Islamic terrorism, Palestine, Iran, and that demonized Zionism and Israel’s attempts at self-defense.

Z STREET”s successful lawsuit exposes how the Obama administration, through its power to grant or withhold tax-exempt status to groups, politicized and corrupted a policy of even-handedness, transparency, and accountability at the IRS.

Like the Western media, professoriate, international organizations, and very much like an Islamic world view, the American IRS viewed Israel, especially Israelis who lived “across the Green Line—the nonborder that delineates pre-1967 Israel from the territories it acquired in the Six Day War” as related to “terrorism” or as “terrorists.”

· American Charities for Palestine

· Institute for Palestine Studies USA Inc

· Teach for Palestine

· Palestine Foundation Inc.

· The Israel Palestine Project

· Opportunity Palestine

· Palestine Advocacy Project

· Physicians for Palestine Inc.

· Coloradans for Justice in Palestine

· Embrace the Children of Palestine Inc.

· Just Peace for Israel Palestine

· Justice for Palestine-Israel Inc.

· Opportunity Palestine

· Palestine in America inc. NFP

· Joining Hands for Justine [sic] in Palestine Israel Inc.

· Land of Canaan Foundation Inc.

· Peace of Palos Hills

· PAL Craftaid

· United Muslim Relief UMR

· Karamausa Inc.

· AJP Educational Foundation Inc.

· Friends of Al-Rowwad USA Inc.

· Holy Land Missions

· Project Unified Assistance

· Palestinian American Medical Association

Now we have further documentation of Obama’s official anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism and its reign at the IRS between 2010 and 2017.

FOX did.

Marcus is a hero. She deserves and I fervently hope that she now receives funding. Her website is here. Her summary of the Consent Order is here.

After I called Lori to congratulate her, she agreed to an interview. Here it is.

Q: Who, if anyone, helped you during your seven year battle?

A: We never could have afforded the seven-plus years of litigation, but luckily my husband and I are lawyers and did the vast bulk of the work. Two law firms graciously helped out as local counsel in Washington, D.C. There were a few in the non-mainstream media who paid attention to our case, and that was extremely helpful. Some smaller pro-Israel organizations such as EMET and AFSI, were very supportive. Most helpful of all, the Wall Street Journal wrote editorial after editorial as it followed our case, and Fox News also covered it at various points.

Q: Who, besides the IRS, opposed, ostracized, or threatened you?

Q: What have you lost in this battle?

Q: How do you feel now that you’ve won this battle for transparency, truth, and justice? Do you believe that this will set a precedent for other conservative or pro-Israel organizations who have been fighting for not-for-profit status?

A: I believe that had we not fought this battle many more pro-Israel organizations would have been hindered by the IRS. There was a repeated effort during the Obama administration to bar organizations that support Judea and Samaria from being eligible for tax-exempt status. There was a reason the IRS fought so hard for so long and with so many resources to keep us quiet. I have heard from other pro-Israel organizations in recent years that they believed their applications were treated swiftly and fairly because we made things difficult for the IRS and because we refused to fold. I am sure that had we not fought back through our lawsuit, the effort in the State Department and the IRS would have become a full-fledged policy.

Q: Have you heard from anyone in the new administration? If so, who and what did they say if anything?

A: I believe our case was finally settled, and the Department of Justice lawyers agreed to the admissions it did, because of the fairly recent entry of new lawyers at the administrative level with oversight for the IRS. I very much doubt ours and the Tea Party cases would have settled had this new administration not been in office.

Q: What are you planning or at least hoping to do now?

ZSTREET.ORG – we had to shut down the one we had because of lack of funding – and share their views and amplify ours.

Q: What else might you want to say?

A: The legal process is an unwieldy, awkward tool for correcting injustice, but sometimes, if you stick to it long enough, it actually works!

First published in INN.