Media falsely reports that US envoy headed terror-funding charity

A number of media outlets incorrectly reported that a charity headed by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman provided funds to an organization designated by the State Department as a “terror” group.

By: World Israel News Staff

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) and Ha’aretz, among other media outlets, reported last week that a charity headed by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman had facilitated the donation of thousands of dollars to an organization called Komemiyut, which is the Hebrew word for “upright” but denotes independence.

JTA, which initiated the report, claimed that the Komemiyut organization in question is in fact the same group that was designated a “terrorist” organization in 1997 by the US State Department based on that  group’s links to Rabbi Meir Kahane, a right-wing Israeli political and religious leader who was assassinated in New York City by an Arab terrorist in 1990.

It should be noted that the original Komemiyut had never committed any act of terror. The group was created in response to the Knesset’s banning of Kahane’s Kach party, which advocated the annexation of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to Israel and the transfer of the local Arab population to another country. As Arutz-7 explains, after winning a Knesset seat in 1984, the controversial party was barred from participating in the 1988 elections on the grounds that it negated Israel’s democratic character.

Following the JTA’s report, which was picked up by Ha’aretz, details emerged indicating that the Komemiyut organization to which Friedman’s charity had made a donation was founded in 2005 in the wake of the expulsion of Jews from the Gaza Strip and is not connected in any way to the State Department-designated Komemiyut group, which was founded in 1994.

Two different groups, same name

According to the JTA report, Komemiyut chairman Moshe “Mussa” Cohen confirmed ties between the two different organizations, a claim that Cohen later denied and attributed to a language barrier and poor communication during his JTA telephone interview. The two organizations’ names are spelled identically in Hebrew.

In an interview with Arutz 7, the founder of the original Komemiyut gorup, Baruch Marzel, confirmed Cohen’s statements, explaining that his organization “never had any ties with the second group, Komemiyut. As far as I know, no one from our group was involved in theirs, and we had no ties or connection. There’s nothing really in common between the two, except for the name of course. Our group was pro-Land of Israel, and so is theirs, but that’s the only similarity. There was never any connection.”

Cohen explained to Arutz 7, “Somebody called me, speaking in Hebrew that was difficult to make out, and asked me, ‘Is the Komemiyut of today the same as the Komemiyut that used to be?’” Based on the way the question was phrased, Cohen believed that JTA was asking whether his organization had maintained the same mission since its founding 12 years ago, to which Cohen replied yes.

JTA then incorrectly reported that the current Komemiyut is the same organization that was founded in 1994.

“There’s nothing to connect [us with the previous organization], we have absolutely no connection whatsoever. How could there be any connection between a group that was founded in 2005 because of the [Gaza] expulsion and a group tied to Rabbi Kahane from decades ago?” Cohen explained to Arutz 7.

While JTA published a follow up article several days later, titled “Leader of group that received money from charity headed by David Friedman, US envoy to Israel, says his group is not the one on US terror list,” the article consisted primarily of Cohen’s denial, without an overt admission that an error had been made in its earlier report.

David FriedmanKahane