This is an investigative story I wrote on The Hebron Fund, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization that raises funds for militant Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron. It was published in Salon on December 14, 2011:

New York charity abets Israeli settler violence

Israeli soldiers staff a checkpoint in the Old City of Hebron. Photo: Jared Malsin, May 2009

On the June 18, 2007, a nonprofit organization called the Hebron Fund held a fundraiser on a cruise ship in the Hudson River to support Israel settlers’ occupation of a Palestinian house in the West Bank city of Hebron. Some 250 people paid a minimum of $65 each for the “Cruise ‘n’ Schmooze.”  The proceeds went to support the settler who had taken the property from the Rajabi family, who denied the settlers’ claims that they had legally purchased the home.

A year and half later, Israeli police using stun grenades carried out a government order to evacuate a group of some 100 settlers hunkered down in the four-story hilltop. The house had become the center of a crisis when the Israeli government ruled that the building had been illegally seized from the Rajabi family, and ordered the settlers out.

Once evicted, the settlers commenced a rampage that lasted several hours, setting fire to Palestinian houses, olive trees and cars. Twenty-five people were wounded, including a man in critical condition after a settler shot him at close range. A Palestinian Red Crescent official told U.S. Consulate officials that during the riots, settlers stopped an ambulance and defaced the ambulance, painting “let the Arabs die” and covering the red crescent symbol with the Star of David.

The Hebron Fund is just one of more than 40 organizations that have raised some $200 million over a decade in tax-exempt donations for Israel’s West Bank settlements, a project that places them in violation of U.S. foreign policy and international law.

U.S. presidents from both parties have opposed settlements in occupied Palestinian territory since Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. Early in his administration, President Obama made settlement expansion a centerpiece of his now-defunct push to renew negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The State Department reiterated this policy last June, saying in astatement, “Like every American administration for decades, we do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.”

Despite official opposition to the settlement enterprise from the White House and State Department, the U.S. Treasury gives tax breaks to groups whose sole purpose is to raise funds for the settlements. These groups have collectively raised more than $200 million over 10 years.

I was arrested while covering the police raid on the Occupy Wall Street encampment at New York’s Zuccotti Park on November 15. Several other journalists were also arrested while covering the days events, highlighting the challenges faced by reporters who deal with New York police.

I videotaped my own arrest and reported on the incident for The New York Times blog The Local East Village:

The police arrested some 200 people, including this reporter, in and around the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park early Tuesday.

While some officers, many in riot gear, moved into the park, others blocked access to the park within a one- to two-block radius, also closing subway stations in the area as well as access to the Brooklyn Bridge.

At around 1:45 a.m., finding all routes to the park blocked, this reporter filmed scuffles between the police and a crowd of more than 100 demonstrators near the intersection of Broadway and Cortlandt Street, about one block north of Zuccotti Park. As shown in the video above, protesters chanted “Shame!” and “This is a peaceful protest!” while occasionally jostling with police.

Less than 15 minutes later, an officer speaking through a bullhorn ordered the demonstrators to leave the area, while a line of police in riot gear slowly pushed the crowd northward along Broadway’s western sidewalk. This reporter tweeted from the scene: “I am one block north of the park and can’t leave. Crowd on sidewalk literally surrounded by police.”

The Local’s reporter, who repeatedly identified himself to the police as a journalist while on the scene, complied with the order and walked north while filming protesters, however (as seen at the 2:11 mark in the video) his progress was stopped by a group of officers blocking the sidewalk at the intersection of Broadway and John Street. One of the officers arrested him using plastic Flexi-Cuffs, even as he continued to identify himself as a journalist and called attention to press credentials hanging from his neck. (The press card had been issued for an unrelated assignment by the Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit of the United Nations in September).

The Local’s reporter was put onboard a police van with eight other arrestees, including two New School undergraduates, a photographer with Agance France Presse, and city councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, all handcuffed behind their backs. Mr. Rodriguez had blood on his temple from what he said was an earlier confrontation with the police. He recalled previous demonstrations, including the occupation of a City College administration building in the early 1990s.

The van arrived at One Police Plaza at around 3:20 a.m., where the arrestees were placed in holding cells. Over the course of the night some 60 other men were remanded to the men’s communal cell, a concrete room separated by bulletproof glass from a police work area.

This reporter was released at 9:35 a.m. and charged with disorderly conduct, which in New York is a “violation,” a step below a misdemeanor.

Most of the demonstrators held at One Police Plaza were charged with the same violation, while others were also accused of resisting arrest. At least two said they were charged with jaywalking after being arrested crossing the street.

According to City Room’s live blog of the Zuccotti Park clearing, at least five other journalists were reportedly arrested while covering ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests. Those arrested included a reporter and a photographer from The Associated Press, a reporter from The Daily News, a photographer from DNA Info, and a freelance reporter for National Public Radio. The Times’s Media Decoder blog reported that other journalists, in what some have called a “media blackout,” complained that they were not allowed access to areas around Zuccotti Park. Gothamist and Huffington Post also noted the seeming crackdown on media coverage.

Today at 11:57 a.m., Matthew Lysiak, a reporter for The Daily News, wrote on that outlet’s live blog that he was arrested while covering a demonstration at a park at Sixth Avenue and Grand Street. At 12:34 p.m., he posted an update indicating that he was on a police bus with two other reporters.