A new law has been introduced into New York’s state legislature with the goal of preventing tax-deductible donations from supporting Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, citing ‘settler’ violence. While introduced by a Democratic assembly member, a ‘Jewish’ group that supports the legislation was recently discovered to be run by a Muslim with ties to Hamas.

The “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence” act was put forward by assembly member Zohran Mamdani (Queens, N.Y.-District 36), who said: “What we have is a number of New York state-registered charities that are sending at least $60 million a year to Israeli settlement organizations which then use that funding to continue the history of expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians in the occupied territories that has been going on for decades.”

Other New York representatives disagreed with Mamdani’s bill, saying in a statement that it was intended to exacerbate divisions among Democrats. They also described the legislation as aiming to harm charities that provide care for terror victims and orphans.

Mamdani, 31, who assumed office in January 2021, dismissed such descriptions of the groups targeted by his bill.

He said that “these organizations masquerade as charities while funding illegal activities.”

According to his official bio, Mamdani—who was born in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to New York at age 7—co-founded the first Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he graduated in 2014. SJP has a history of antisemitic activities and connections with Hamas. Mamdani was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for a tweet in which he called Israel an  “occupation & apartheid in Palestine” that is a form of “white supremacy.”

Jewish Voice for Peace is among the groups supporting the bill. Its name implies that JVP is a Jewish group and while there are many Jews associated with the organization, its co-founder is Hatem Bazian who has been described as “the godfather of Islamist campus antisemitism.” Daniel Greenfield reported on  Bazian in a recent article in Front Page Magazine:

“Back in the 90’s when Hatem was at San Francisco State University, he participated in an assault on the offices of the Golden Gater student newspaper accusing it of being full of Jewish spies. Jewish students had complained about anti-Semitic behavior by Bazian, in his role as student body president, and his campaign against Hillel, the leading Jewish campus organization, was a direct attempt to disenfranchise Jewish students.”

Bazian furthered his antisemitic activities by founding Students for Justice in Palestine. While the organization claimed to oppose Israel on a political basis, led by Bazian, the students disrupted Jewish events, even getting arrested for disrupting a Holocaust Remembrance Day event and engaging in conspiracy theories that Jewish donors to the university were behind his arrest. An SJP event in 2001 was sponsored by Hamas which the organization’s website described as  “a vast social organization”.

Bazian’s connection with JVP was unknown until last week when a post appeared on Twitter criticizing CNN’s negative reporting of Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s ‘Nakba’ event. The tweet was posted from Bazian’s personal account but it appears he intended to post under the JVP account. He quickly deleted the tweet but this mistake revealed his connection to the ‘Jewish’ group.

So it turns out the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice For Peace org is actually run by NON-JEWISH Hamas affiliated Hatem Bazian…!?

He thought he was logged into the JVP Twitter account when he replied to @jaketapper pretending to be a Jew… pic.twitter.com/pryzcOsx0w

— A Jewish Resistance (@AJwshResistance) May 13, 2023

The revelation that Jewish Voices for Peace is a front for Bazian is especially damning as the group’s credibility was based on it being a Jewish organization founded and run by Rebecca Vilkomerson. That claim is now known to be a sham.

In a statement released in conjunction with American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), JVP called criticisms of Bazian’s role “Islamophobia”.