{"id":78445,"date":"2020-06-02T17:05:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T15:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=78445"},"modified":"2020-06-02T07:25:47","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T05:25:47","slug":"01-05-53","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=78445","title":{"rendered":"Former Nazi Hunter Targeting Whitney Museum of Art in NYC Over \u2018Capitulation\u2019 to Anti-Israel Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Former Nazi Hunter Targeting Whitney Museum of Art in NYC Over \u2018Capitulation\u2019 to Anti-Israel Activists<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Algemeiner Staff<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A taxi cab passes by the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, April 23, 2015. Photo: Reuters \/ Brendan McDermid.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A former top official with the US Justice Department who hunted Nazi war criminals for two decades is spearheading a legal effort to strip the famed Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City of its tax-exempt status.<\/span><\/p>\n

The move follows a bitter row last year over the resignation of a board member, in which accusations of political bias and antisemitism played a decisive role.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) dated May 8, Neal Sher \u2014 a former head of the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Special Investigations and an ex-director of the pro-Israel lobbying organization AIPAC \u2014 charged that senior executives and staff members at the Whitney, including museum director Adam Weinberg, had \u201cknowingly engaged in conduct which was flagrantly at odds with the Whitney\u2019s charitable purpose.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wrote Sher: \u201cSpecifically, they orchestrated and acquiesced in a concerted smear campaign against Warren Kanders, a distinguished member of the Board, in order to advance a transparently political agenda which had no relevance whatsoever to the museum\u2019s charitable purpose.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kanders stepped down as vice chairman of the Whitney in July 2019 following a vocal activist campaign protesting his Florida-based company, Safariland, for its sales of tear gas to law enforcement agencies in the US and Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his resignation letter, the well-known art collector and philanthropist said that the \u201ccampaign of attacks against me and my company that has been waged these past several months has threatened to undermine the important work of the Whitney. I joined this board to help the museum prosper. I do not wish to play a role, however inadvertent, in its demise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Sher, the individuals and groups that demanded Kanders\u2019 resignation were \u201cat the nexus of  widespread antisemitic, anti-capitalist and terrorism-connected movements.\u201d Sher identified Amin Hussein \u2014 a Palestinian-American activist who founded the radical organization Decolonize This Place (DTP) \u2014 as the \u201cchief agitator and ringleader\u201d of the protests against Kanders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRather than protecting the integrity of the Whitney\u2019s raison d\u2019e\u0302tre \u2014 which is the basis for its charitable status \u2014 museum leadership appeased Husain and his band of followers, empowered his unlawful methods and capitulated to his demands,\u201d Sher wrote in his IRS letter.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a March 2019 blog post, DTP included Safariland\u2019s business relationship with Israel as one of several reasons to target Kanders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSafariland manufactures tear gas used against migrant families at the Mexico\/US border, water protectors at Standing Rock, Black folx (sic) in Ferguson, Palestinians during the Great Return March, +++. Safariland isn\u2019t \u2018over there,’\u201d the group claimed.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an <\/strong><\/span>interview with the <\/strong><\/span>Financial Time<\/strong><\/span>s<\/em><\/a> on Monday, Sher explained why he was targeting the Whitney\u2019s tax-exempt status.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been around long enough to know that in order to get things done you have to know where to appropriately apply pressure,\u201d he said. Investigations by the IRS \u201cget under the fingernails,\u201d he added.Those who supported the Whitney had \u201cevery right to expect, indeed to demand, that their donations be used for legitimate charitable purposes, rather than be hijacked to advance unrelated political causes,\u201d Sher emphasized in his letter to the IRS.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Former Nazi Hunter Targeting Whitney Museum of Art in NYC Over \u2018Capitulation\u2019 to Anti-Israel Activists Algemeiner Staff A taxi cab passes by the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, April 23, 2015. Photo: Reuters \/ Brendan McDermid. A former top official with the US Justice Department who hunted Nazi war criminals for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78445"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78738,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78445\/revisions\/78738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}