Should Donors Get Tax Breaks for Supporting Groups Whose Missions Contradict U.S. Policy?

A column about charities that support the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is stirring debate on the Washington Post’s Web site and on other blogs.

David Ignatius, a Post columnist, says that donors contributed $33.4-million in tax-exempt gifts to pro-settlement organizations and other related charities from 2004 to 2007. The United States government has for many years had a policy against spending money for settlements in the West Bank, which it regards as an obstacle to peace.

“Critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through tax-exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns,” Mr. Ignatius writes.

He says that “often the U.S. charities will specify that their gifts are going to charities in Israel, even though the recipients are in the West Bank, which the United States regards as occupied territory. American Friends of the College of Judea and Samaria, for example, said its donations were ‘to provide for the expansion and furtherance of the needs of educational institutions in Israel,’ even though the college is in the settlement of Ariel.’”

Many commenters on Mr. Ignatius’s article applauded him for raising the issue. But one reader says: “If the IRS deems that an organization is worthy of designation as a charity, to which deductions made can be itemized and deducted from our taxes, the interest in that group’s activities should stop.”

He says Mr. Ignatius risks “getting too deep into the daily lives of foreigners in their homelands.”

What do you think?