...Diala Shamas is senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a human rights non-profit headquartered in New York City. She said that while donations to communities like Ma’on, “are illegal under international law and could be illegal under US law, the problem has always been one of enforcement”.

She believes that attorneys-general could prosecute over donations funding illegal acts, and the IRS could enforce its own rules on equivalence, but “Israeli causes have enjoyed complete impunity”.

However, she pointed to initiatives including the so-called “Not on Our Dime” bill, supported by CCR and other organizations, currently before New York’s state house, which “clarifies that funding Israeli settlement activity … is illegal”, according to a campaign website...

Shamas, the civil rights lawyer, said Israel’s “record of complete impunity” with respect to the enforcement of international law might lull donors into a false sense of security.

“This is actually an incredibly risky space to be giving in,” she said, but those giving to Israel did not appear subject to “the level of risk assessment that people have to make when they’re giving in other high-risk places, whether it’s Somalia, Afghanistan, or Palestinians in Gaza”. ...

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