As director of the Middle East Forum, I thank you for your interest in our work and your continued support.
We are grateful to those who have already made a donation to the Middle East Forum in 2020. If you have not yet made a gift, you can do so by clicking here. Remember to make your gift online to the Middle East Forum by midnight, tonight, December 31, 2020, to ensure tax credit for 2020 and eligibility for 2021 events.
I write because the CARES Act has just given U.S. taxpayers an extra incentive to donate in calendar 2020. For 2020, those who itemize deductions on their tax returns can deduct up to 100% of their adjusted gross income (AGI), as opposed to the cap of 60% normally. Even those who do not itemize (and choose the standard deduction) can benefit from the CARES Act this year. This Act allows for write-offs up to $300 in cash donations to non-profit organizations, like MEF.
Eliminating the contribution limit creates a huge opportunity for donors who want to make a significant impact to charities this year. Under these rules, a donor could take a significant distribution from their IRA, rather than the annual $100,000 limit, donate it to charity, and take a deduction for the full amount. If you’re considering leaving a large portion of your IRA to charity in your estate, this may be a year to consider a large gift especially if you are expecting to have a taxable estate.
A one-time contribution at the end of 2020 will greatly help us meet our needs for 2021.
We are especially proud that just this week the U.S. Senate Finance Committee published a detailed memorandum citing and corroborating the Middle East Forum's research that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded a designated terrorist organization.
And columnist Victor Kattan just lamented in an article in the far-left Ha’aretz that MEF’s president Daniel Pipes “has, almost incredibly, succeeded (together with likeminded groups) in establishing a foothold and following in the Arab world, an area that Palestinian activists have neglected.”
Please note five of this year’s noteworthy accomplishments:
1. Changing the U.S. approach to Middle East peace.
We have taken our paradigm-changing “Israel Victory” narrative to dozens of senior U.S. officials in the White House, the National Security Council and the State Department. We say, in brief: first, convince the Palestinians they lost, then peace will follow.
Accordingly, we have argued against a return to the “peace-processing” of the past, which rewards Palestinian obduracy and violence; and instead advocated since 1990 the “outside-in” approach that led to Israel’s new relations with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
We launched a campaign to put biased pro-Islamist, anti-Israel, and anti-Western university Middle East Studies programs under federal investigation, and at risk of losing all federal funding under President Trump's Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism.
Separately, we: (i) inspired Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) to pressure the Government Accountability Office to perform a “comprehensive evaluation” of “potential misuse of taxpayer funds” at university Middle East Studies programs; and (ii) worked with Rep. Lamborn to spur investigations by the Education, Justice and Treasury departments of San Francisco State University for potential violations of anti-terrorism laws, after the university virtually hosted known terrorist Leila Khaled in September.
4. Forcing Al Jazeera to register as a foreign agent.
Our multi-year effort to counter Qatar’s toxic influence campaign in the U.S. through its media arm culminated in the U.S. Department of Justice ordering AJ+, a US-based subsidiary of Al Jazeera Media Network, to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), because it is “engaged in political activities within the United States … on behalf of the Government of Qatar.”
5. Exposing the Radical Ties of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
We exposed the terrorism ties and extremism of Stand With Kashmir, a shadowy anti-Indian movement in the U.S. that works to promote and defend Islamists. In the process, we smoked out yet more of Rep. Omar’s radical ties. Feeding our information to award-winning investigative journalist Aarti Tikoo Singh, we documented (see, here, here and here) several U.S.- and UN-designated terrorist groups closely and publicly aligned with Omar, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbu-ul-Mujahideen, and Jaish-e-Mohammad.
A tax-deductible contribution can be made most easily by clicking here, or for other options, please see below.
You can also mail a check made out to the Middle East Forum. Please include a note telling us how to direct your gift and send to:
Middle East Forum 1650 Market St. Suite 3600 Philadelphia, PA 19103
Happy New Year to you and your family.
Sincerely,
Gregg Roman Director Middle East Forum
You Can Still Make Your End of 2020, Tax-Deductible Donation to the Middle East Forum Before Midnight Here.
Online gifts completed no later than midnight in your time zone on December 31, 2020, will qualify. To make your gift online, click here.
IRS guidelines require online credit card transactions be completed by 11:59 p.m. December 31, 2020 (based on the time zone in which the gift is made) in order for those gifts to count toward 2020 tax deductibility.
The fastest way to give is to make your gift online.
You can also mail a check made out to the Middle East Forum. Please include a note telling us how to direct your gift and send to:
Middle East Forum 1650 Market St. Suite 3600 Philadelphia, PA 19103
Credit card gifts may also be made by mail to the above address. Please include your credit card number, expiration date, and daytime telephone number. We also accept donation of stock. Donations of stock may be sent to Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Account No. 59334817, DTC# 0062, Account Name: The Middle East Forum Account 1. Please contact Gregg Roman at [email protected] to let him know of the stock donation to ensure you receive proper credit.
