New York’s Ties to Israel Bring the Gaza War Home

“You are stealing my house!” yells Muna el-Kurd in a May 2021 video. In the yard of her family home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem — half of which intruders had occupied since 2009 — she confronted a bearded man in a T-shirt and sweatpants.

“Why are you yelling at me?” said the man, Long Island native Yaakov Fauci. “If I don’t steal it, someone else is going to steal it.”

Fauci had lived in Sheikh Jarrah for a decade, recruited by the firm Nahalat Shimon International. The firm’s director, Seymour Braun, is a Manhattan-based lawyer. His organization’s parent company is incorporated in Delaware. The firm could not be reached for comment.

Fauci and Braun are part of a network of groups with extensive ties to New York that are helping slowly rid swaths of Israel and the occupied West Bank of Palestinians.

Some, like Nahalat Shimon, are private companies. Others are structured as charities. The Central Fund of Israel is a New York-based nonprofit whose stated goal is to ensure that donations from Israel backers “go to charitable causes” — but it also funnels millions of dollars a year to settler groups.

The organization is the primary funder for the Israel Land Fund — which has focused many of its “land reclamation” efforts on El-Kurd’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood — as well as other settler groups, like Regavim, which also receives support from the Long Island-based One Israel Fund. One of Regavim’s targets is Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the southern West Bank where Israeli soldiers have attacked residents who have tried to stop settler bulldozers from leveling homes, schools, farms, and infrastructure.

Another New York-based nonprofit, Friends of Ir David, as well as Manhattan billionaire Ira Rennert, are major funders of Elad, an organization whose members have taken over Palestinian homes and launched eviction proceedings in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwa. Elad works in close conjunction with the Jewish National Fund, a 120-year-old organization whose US branch is a New York-registered nonprofit. Israel’s Jewish National Fund owns nearly 15 percent of the country’s land and recently ramped up its settlement development programs. The Israel Land Fund, Regavim, the One Israel Fund, and Elad did not respond to requests for comment.

On an August trip to Israel, Mayor Eric Adams met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — as well as a senior settlement leader, drawing backlash from the prominent liberal pro-Israel advocacy organization J Street. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, the highest-ranking Jewish politician in the city, called on Adams to meet with “Palestinian families whose homes were demolished.”

Residents of West Bank settlements have opened their own front in the current war. Emboldened by the violence, they’ve ridded entire villages of their Palestinian inhabitants, established new checkpoints to block Palestinian movement, and attacked houses and funerals. The Israeli military has been distributing rifles to settlers, who have killed more than 60 Palestinians since October 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Assemblymember Harvey Epstein, who signed the letter, described the settlements as “human rights abuses,” but he took issue with the bill’s focus on Israel-Palestine.

“I don’t think attacking the only Jewish state is the answer to that problem,” Epstein told New York Focus.

Even if Israel-critical measures were to pass the state legislature, it’s unlikely the executive chamber would receive them warmly. In 2016, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order mandating that the state divest from companies participating in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which aims to pressure Israel to comply with international human rights law. Since then, the state Office of General Services has blacklisted up to 14 companies a year — mostly international firms — according to records obtained by New York Focus.

Cuomo’s successor leveraged his anti-BDS policy in one of her early moves as governor: Last year, Hochul threatened to divest Albany’s $110 million in Unilever holdings over a planned West Bank sales boycott by Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The company quashed the boycott after Hochul’s and other legal threats.

In one of his few public moves after resigning, Cuomo announced he would launch an advocacy group called Progressives for Israel. (The organization has not registered as a political advocacy group nor made any public comments since the announcement.)

Another Israel-aligned group emerged last year, spending largely anonymously donated funds on New York elections. Called the New York Solidarity Network, the group ostensibly aims to become a local version of the national American Israel Public Affairs Committee — “to help pro-Israel voters make an informed decision about who they would support in a primary.” Among its early advisers is former New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and its website features testimonies from US Representative Ritchie Torres and Assemblymember Inez Dickens.

Meanwhile, New York has made investments in the Israeli government via the Development Corporation of Israel, which is headquartered in New York City and has issued sovereign debt since 1951. The New York state pension system had invested nearly $250 million in the corporation’s Israel Bonds program before state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli pledged an additional $20 million last week. (At least seven other states have also bought bonds during the current war.)

According to a spokesperson for Comptroller Lander, New York City retirement funds are not currently invested in Israel Bonds or any other sovereign bonds.

When asked whether the state comptroller is concerned about reports that Israel is violating international law by targeting civilians, using illegal chemical weapons, and cutting off electricity and supplies to Gaza, DiNapoli’s office directed New York Focus to the press release announcing the latest bond purchase.

“I am heartened that so many other public funds have stepped forward to purchase bonds and support Israel, the only democratic government in the region, during these tragic and challenging days,” DiNapoli said in the press release. The program’s board chair added: “The Empire State has continually demonstrated that it strongly stands with the Jewish State today and forever.”

“It’s a race between these politicians: Who is supporting Israel more?” said Rimawi, from Bay Ridge, where two men waving Israeli flags reportedly assaulted a Palestinian-American teenager last week. He wishes local officials wouldn’t wade into international affairs; he said his Arab American Federation endorsed New York City Mayor Eric Adams with the understanding that he’d focus on the city.

Since the current war, Adams has falsely accused local political opponents of “calling for the extermination of Jewish people.” During a video call with Muslim community leaders last week, he “scolded” attendees and staff muted people who were critical of his rhetoric, Gothamist reported.

By unquestioningly supporting Israel’s onslaught and “inciting against” people expressing solidarity for victims in Gaza, Rimawi said, New York’s politicians are “bringing the war home from the Middle East.”

Meanwhile, many New York state and federal politicians have pressured the federal government to help Americans and their family members evacuate Israel, and some have provided constituents with resources to help loved ones. But far fewer have made the same overtures to Americans in Gaza.

“We’re going to continue to work hard to assist and to cut through whatever bureaucracy may be an obstacle to getting our friends, families home,” said Republican US Representative Marc Molinaro. Asked whether his office had provided support to Americans trying to flee Gaza, a spokesperson for Molinaro told New York Focus: “If any American citizen needs help, our office helps.”