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On February 1, Amnesty International published a conspiracy theory about Jews.

Amnesty's 280-page diatribe entitled, "Israel's Apartheid Against the Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity," alleges that the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and the only Jewish state in the world is a criminal enterprise and has been since its formation in 1948. According to Amnesty, the State of Israel is an apartheid state whose very existence is a crime against humanity.

In an interview with The Times of Israel website last week, Philip Luther, Amnesty's director of research and advocacy for the Middle East and North Africa, described the way he and his fellow authors perceive Israel's parliamentary democracy, which as his interviewer Lazar Berman noted, is admired by 68 percent of the Palestinians.

Luther and his colleagues approach Israel like a Potemkin village set up to conceal the evil at the heart of the Jewish state.

In Luther's words: "It is such a complicated system, and it's a dizzying array of laws, policies and practices that interweave with each other. Now, any one component of those may mask the reality behind it, or may have what appears to be an innocent and legitimate aim. So the idea that you would dismantle construction that has no building permit seems logical, and you can see why anyone who's not looking at the broader context would feel...well, that's just a normal thing you do under the rule of law. So I can see [why] you would have some situations like that. Now, the problem is it's the way all these things work together."

In other words, Israel's laws are easy to understand. And their equal enforcement towards all IsraelisJews and non-Jews alikeis entirely proper. Indeed, every aspect of Israeli governance is entirely proper. But none of this matters because it's all just a big conspiracy.

"The Israeli state has made it so difficult to penetrate," Luther continued. "They have tried to create a smokescreen around, and of course there is a democratic system, and there are judicial institutions that of course then call the state to account, or at least challenge their decisions. But that's what makes it so challenging in some ways, then, to disentangle them when you put it all together."

Everyone in Israel is a smokescreen maker. Everyonejudges, generals, lawmakers, government officials and ministersis in on "put[ting] it all together."

To expose the truth of Israel's devious venality, the world needs the likes of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations and progressive groups from Brussels to Berkeley to devote their resources to exposing the tiny democracy surrounded by racist enemies who openly call for its destruction. It's not that they want to ignore Syria, Iran, China or Pakistan. The Israelis just leave them no choice.

As Luther put it: "The Israeli state...ends up being the driver of...resources unnecessarily spent on investigations by anybody, because it's made so damn complicated."

Berman reasonably tried to understand why Amnesty International felt it needed to publish its conspiracy theory now. There is no war going on. The only recent developments in Israel would seem amenable to Amnesty's goal of ending the existence of the Jewish nation-state. Israel's new governing coalition is dominated by the radical Left. Even more significant, Israel's ruling coalition commands a bare parliamentary majority and is wholly dependent for its survival on its smallest faction, the United Arab List, an Arab Islamist party historically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

So why is Amnesty fixating on Israel now?

Luther's response on this issue revealed much about the nature of the Western progressive camp's steadily escalating campaign against Israel.

Luther explained that in the progressive camp: "There is a growing debate on the subject [of whether Israel is an apartheid state]. We thought it was absolutely right and proper that we brought up. ...When you're looking at the question of whether you're going to be looking at any particular place, well, is there a debate on it? There are external factors, that's part of the strategic landscape. It's, 'Do we have something to say on it? Is it something that we might have a contribution?'"

In other words, from Amnesty's perspective, publishing the report was about keeping up with the Joneses. Last year, Human Rights Watch falsely accused Israel of maintaining an apartheid regime in united Jerusalem, Judea and Samariaareas Israel took control over from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War. Other progressive groups published similar reports. On campuses throughout Europe and the U.S., "Israel Apartheid Month" has become a major annual event. Amnesty's decision to publish a report accusing Israel of maintaining an apartheid regime not only in unified Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, but in sovereign Israel and indeed all over the world, was about jumping to the front of the line.

Luther's backhanded admission that it was social pressure that compelled Amnesty to publish its conspiracy theory alleging Israelis run a secret criminal state behind their liberal democracy tells us two important things. The first is about the nature of the progressive camp today and what a distance it has traveled in recent decades.

In the 1960s and 1970s, led by the Soviets and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Non-Aligned Movement embraced the notion that Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement, was inherently racist. The high-water mark in this period's "Israel apartheid" campaign was the passage of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 in 1975, which defined Zionism as a form of racism.

The backlash against 3379 from the U.S. was powerful, bipartisan and consistent. As a consequence, over time, outside the radical fringes of the political Left, it became less and less acceptable to stand athwart reality and accuse the Jewish state of being racist. The joint Soviet-PLO campaign was finally defeated with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. That year, the first Bush administration successfully brought about the abrogation of Resolution 3379.

If 30 years ago it was considered socially unacceptable to refer to Israel as a racist state, today, as Luther indicated, falsely accusing Israel of apartheid isn't merely acceptable. For progressives, it is de rigueur.

And this brings us to the second lesson from Luther's admission. In 1993, Amnesty and the rest of the progressive, self-proclaimed "human rights community," along with the Israeli Left and the vast majority of the American Jewish community, cheered the initiation of the peace process between Israel and the PLO. They uniformly leveled their condemnations of Israel in the context of the peace process. By enforcing its sovereignty in unified Jerusalem and asserting its national and legal rights in Judea and Samaria, Israel, they alleged, was undermining chances for peace through a two-state solution.

But the two-state paradigm was based on an acceptance of Israel's right to exist. The two-state policy model views the Palestinian conflict with Israel as a real estate dispute. To resolve it, Israel needs to transfer a certain amount of land to the PLO, on which the PLO will establish a sovereign Palestinian-Arab state. That state will then live peacefully, side by side with the Jewish state.

Amnesty's report, and Luther's assertion that the report was motivated by social pressure to keep up with the progressive herd, make clear that the two-state paradigm is defunct. The progressive Left, which was the two-state solution's main champion, no longer accepts its central premisethat Israel has a right to exist in the first instance. Obviously, with the progressive Left now fully aligned with the PLO, Hamas and Iran in rejecting Israel's right to exist, the jig is up. There can only be one sovereign state on the landmass west of the Jordan Rivereither Israel or Palestine.

The principal victim of this state of affairs is not Israel. Most Israelis accepted long ago that Amnesty and the progressive Left, of which it is a leading member, are implacably hostile to the Jewish state. So too, most Israelis recognized in 2000 that the two-state solution was dead after the PLO rejected statehood and peace and instead initiated a terror war, the Second Intifada, against Israel.

The principal casualty of the progressive camp's formal embrace of Iran's position that Israel must be wiped off the map is the Biden administration. President Joe Biden and his team have lost the fig leaf of "peace" to justify their demands for Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. With the two-state solution now abandoned by its main championsBiden's progressive basethe strategic and political rationale for the two-state solution is gone. All that remains is hostility toward Israel.

The secondary casualty of the progressive Left's open championing of Israel's destruction is the American Jewish left. Amnesty's report, like the "Israel apartheid" campaigns more generally, present Jewish progressives with a choice. They can support Jewish political freedom and rights, or they can be progressives. Reasonably, but futilely, American Jewish progressives, such as the Union of Reform Judaism, reacted with fury to the Amnesty report.

Israel has managed over its 74 years to develop a system that provides full civil rights to all its citizens, while protecting and preserving Israel's Jewish national identity. Contrary to Amnesty's conspiracy theory, Israel's democracy is real, sustained and sustainable. But its progressive detractors in the Biden administration and the American Jewish community are now faced with a choice. Either they can embrace conspiracy theories and maintain their position in their progressive circles, or they can embrace the truth.

Caroline B. Glick is a senior columnist at Israel Hayom and the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown Forum, 2014). From 1994 to 1996, she served as a core member of Israel's negotiating team with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Amnesty's Conspiracy Theory Puts Biden and Progressive Jews in a Bind | Opinion - Newsweek

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The founder of a popular progressive Washington, D.C.-area restaurant chain stood by his previous calls to defund the police and abolish prisons after one of his joints was hit by an attempted armed robbery late Sunday night.

Busboys and Poets, which operates as a restaurant, bar, bookstore and "safe space" for progressives to gather, is the latest example of the violent crime wave gripping the nation's capital.

Andy Shallal the founder and CEO of Busboys and Poets confirmed to Fox News Digital that nothing was stolen from the business in the robbery and that he believes it was likely committed by local "kids with nothing better to do" that are looking to "terrorize people."

TEEN BURGER KING CASHIER SHOT AND KILLED DURING ROBBERY IN MANHATTAN

"I think there's been an uptick in crime, not just in D.C. but throughout the country, and D.C. is no exception, of course," Shallal said in the Monday phone interview.

The restaurant chain founder defended his past "defund police" tweets on Monday, saying he stands by them "more than ever."

"You cannot reform a broken system. You have to dismantle it and start over. Kudos to Minneapolis City Council for taking the lead to dismantle the police department," Shallal tweeted in June 2020. "Next is abolishing prisons. #DefundPolice #protests #BlackLivesMatter #keepthemomentum"

"I think the problem we have here is when the police show up, the incident has already happened. The problem has already occurred," Shallal told Fox News Digital. "So for us to have the police it's nice to have them to show up, but what are we doing to stop the root causes of what makes people do stuff like this?"

Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department Robert Contee speaks during a press briefing. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Shallal said that when he calls the police, it is "usually something terrible that's just happened" and said that law enforcement "can't un-terrible something."

"When we talk about defunding the police, just to be clear, it is to divert some of the funds that go to the police to services that make it easier for the police to do their jobs," Shallal said, adding he believes police departments should hire more social workers and mental health counselors to "take away" the police's responsibility to "have to deal with all that and divert them from what they really need to do."

GEORGETOWN SHOOTING LEAVES MAN DEAD IN UPSCALE WASHINGTON, DC NEIGHBORHOOD, POLICE SAY

Shallal said he sees the COVID-19 pandemic, social media and a lack of economic opportunities as a few factors driving the national crime surge, but said he does not "imagine" how the changing view of policing influenced by the "defund the police" movement would affect the surge in crime.

"Again, we have to look at the root causes, right? I mean, it's one thing to put a Band-Aid on an injury, and it's another thing to find out how the injury started and make sure that it doesn't keep bleeding," Shallal said. "We continue to bleed, we continue to put Band-Aids on, and it doesn't help."

Shallal said he is "not against police" and that he speaks to them "all the time," and said that the police are dealing with the "most ridiculous things" they are "expected to deal with," like "homelessness," "mental health" and "social dysfunction."

"It's very hard for them to do their job," Shallal said, adding that he has "never called the police other than if there's a problem."

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser conducts a news conference to announce new traffic safety enhancements around schools at Van Ness Elementary School in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Nov. 30, 2021. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Shallal called for defunding the police while claiming the violent protests after the murder of George Floyd that led to riots were becoming more peaceful because the police "have become less violent."

"The demonstrations are getting more peaceful according to news. Nothing changed with the protesters, its the police that have become less violent," he wrote in June 2020. "Defunding police and Refunding much needed social services is the way forward. #BlackLivesMattters #protests2020 #DefundPolice"

The bar chain founder has a history of calling for the defunding of police.

Shallal, who has donated thousands of dollars to Democrats, including Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, has been in the headlines several times in recent years, including when he laid off hundreds of workers at the beginning of the pandemic and when progressive "Squad" Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., defended their anti-Israel stances at his restaurant in 2019.

From left, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., take questions during a news conference about Islamophobia on Capitol Hill on Nov. 30, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Busboys and Poets made headlines in January after the restaurant chain canceled an event being held at a location by pro-life Democrats.

"While we welcome conversations from individuals expressing different viewpoints and pride ourselves on being a venue for respectful conversations between diverse groups, we are also a safe space," a restaurant spokeswoman told the Washington Free Beacon. "As such, we can not knowingly accept events designed to fund an agenda which our community members believe to be trampling on the rights of others."

Three suspects walked into the D.C. bar late Sunday as the business was closing up shop, brandishing rifles and a handgun while demanding money.

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Nothing was taken from the restaurant, and the robbers drove off in a four-door sedan, according to local reports.

This isn't the first time one of Busboy and Poets' locations has made it into the headlines for being at the center of a crime scene. Last July, a gunman opened fire outside and hit several buildings, including the Hyattsville location of Busboys and Poets.

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Progressive DC bar owner stands by defund the police tweets after attempted armed robbery - Fox News

news, federal-politics, David Pocock, Zali Steggall, independents, Greens, ACT, Senate, election, Zed Seselja

Zali Steggall took on and defeated Tony Abbott as an independent in the Sydney seat of Warringah, now she is helping another former elite sports star in his bid to knock over a prominent Liberal parliamentarian, ACT Senator Zed Seselja. Ms Steggall's support for former Wallabies captain and independent Senate candidate David Pocock comes as progressive federal election candidates in the ACT are urged to work together in a bid to unseat the major parties in the territory's Senate race. The Greens are urging the campaigns to work together but, as The Canberra Times has confirmed, there are no formal talks under way or planned. Regardless, Senator Seselja says calls for an alliance against him are no surprise and he is not taking any vote for granted. For Mr Pocock, independence is essential. "I am not aligned with the Greens, with any other independent candidate or indeed either of the major parties," he declared. "I am offering the people of the ACT a completely new and different choice, one that is balanced and truly represents their views." While also strongly backing independent ACT candidate Kim Rubenstein, the Winter Olympian and now federal MP is helping Mr Pocock. "For me, David Pocock in the Senate would be a vital voice to ensure good outcomes," Ms Steggall told The Canberra Times. "I know Rex Patrick is committed for South Australia. Jacqui Lambie is strong, not quite as strong on climate but strong for Tasmania and I think it would be great to see a strong voice for the ACT in David." Alongside his sporting achievements, Mr Pocock is a long-time environmental and social justice activist and is standing for election on a platform of climate action, integrity and territory rights. He is making the leap into politics amid a switch away from major parties, but he is up against history. The ACT has returned one Labor and one Liberal senator at every election since 1975. Ms Steggall had dinner with Mr Pocock this week in Canberra. "I am offering my personal support in the sense of the personal experience of what it is like to leave a career and launch yourself into politics," she explained. "What does it take? How organised do you have to be? The fundraising, the volunteers, organising the forums, the policy platform, the messaging. "At the end of the day, there's no point in standing for good things or doing good work if people don't know about you because you have to let people know, so being a good communicator is incredibly important." Mr Pocock, who has been building a campaign team and is in the process of registering a David Pocock party to secure above-the-line ballot voting, appreciates Ms Steggall's experience and advice. "I've enjoyed catching up with Zali and, given her work ethic and powerful advocacy for her community, I really appreciate her support," he said. "The major parties have a huge amount of resources and machinery behind them. It's a David versus Goliath scenario." The Greens, who are running academic and former public servant Tjanara Goreng Goreng top of the senate ticket, are suggesting they and the campaign teams of Mr Pocock and Professor Kim Rubenstein work together to unseat Senator Seselja, who has represented the ACT since 2013. "We've got very, very similar platforms, not identical at all, but very, very similar platforms of the Greens and David Pocock and Kim Rubenstein," Greens candidate for Canberra Tim Hollo said on Friday. "And if we cooperate and work together and suggest to voters that they preference each other, then I think there's a very, very good chance that somebody will knock off Zed Seselja who really does not represent the views of most Canberrans." The Canberra Times has spoken to all three campaign teams and confirmed there are no formal talks on preferences or other cooperation planned or under way. "I'm not surprised by the Greens calling for an alliance with the independent candidates," Senator Seselja said. "They are all the same. Whether it's the Greens, or other extreme Green-style independents such as David Pocock, they're all cut from the same cloth. "There are plenty of Canberrans who do not support Extinction Rebellion extreme Green policies, who do not support the crippling our national security by cutting the defence budget in half or decriminalising hard drugs like ice and heroin - and I am going to continue to stand up for those Canberrans." Senator Seselja has criticised Mr Pocock for getting arrested at a 2014 environmental protest, but he hit back at his rival describing him as "out of touch" on mainstream climate views. Ms Steggall says the best advice she can give Mr Pocock is just be himself. "I think he has to be true to himself. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what being an independent is about," she said. Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:

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February 12 2022 - 5:30AM

Zali Steggall took on and defeated Tony Abbott as an independent in the Sydney seat of Warringah, now she is helping another former elite sports star in his bid to knock over a prominent Liberal parliamentarian, ACT Senator Zed Seselja.

Ms Steggall's support for former Wallabies captain and independent Senate candidate David Pocock comes as progressive federal election candidates in the ACT are urged to work together in a bid to unseat the major parties in the territory's Senate race.

The Greens are urging the campaigns to work together but, as The Canberra Times has confirmed, there are no formal talks under way or planned. Regardless, Senator Seselja says calls for an alliance against him are no surprise and he is not taking any vote for granted.

For Mr Pocock, independence is essential.

"I am not aligned with the Greens, with any other independent candidate or indeed either of the major parties," he declared. "I am offering the people of the ACT a completely new and different choice, one that is balanced and truly represents their views."

While also strongly backing independent ACT candidate Kim Rubenstein, the Winter Olympian and now federal MP is helping Mr Pocock.

"For me, David Pocock in the Senate would be a vital voice to ensure good outcomes," Ms Steggall told The Canberra Times.

"I know Rex Patrick is committed for South Australia. Jacqui Lambie is strong, not quite as strong on climate but strong for Tasmania and I think it would be great to see a strong voice for the ACT in David."

Alongside his sporting achievements, Mr Pocock is a long-time environmental and social justice activist and is standing for election on a platform of climate action, integrity and territory rights. He is making the leap into politics amid a switch away from major parties, but he is up against history. The ACT has returned one Labor and one Liberal senator at every election since 1975.

Ms Steggall had dinner with Mr Pocock this week in Canberra.

"I am offering my personal support in the sense of the personal experience of what it is like to leave a career and launch yourself into politics," she explained. "What does it take? How organised do you have to be? The fundraising, the volunteers, organising the forums, the policy platform, the messaging.

"At the end of the day, there's no point in standing for good things or doing good work if people don't know about you because you have to let people know, so being a good communicator is incredibly important."

Mr Pocock, who has been building a campaign team and is in the process of registering a David Pocock party to secure above-the-line ballot voting, appreciates Ms Steggall's experience and advice.

"I've enjoyed catching up with Zali and, given her work ethic and powerful advocacy for her community, I really appreciate her support," he said.

"The major parties have a huge amount of resources and machinery behind them. It's a David versus Goliath scenario."

The Greens, who are running academic and former public servant Tjanara Goreng Goreng top of the senate ticket, are suggesting they and the campaign teams of Mr Pocock and Professor Kim Rubenstein work together to unseat Senator Seselja, who has represented the ACT since 2013.

"We've got very, very similar platforms, not identical at all, but very, very similar platforms of the Greens and David Pocock and Kim Rubenstein," Greens candidate for Canberra Tim Hollo said on Friday.

"And if we cooperate and work together and suggest to voters that they preference each other, then I think there's a very, very good chance that somebody will knock off Zed Seselja who really does not represent the views of most Canberrans."

The Canberra Times has spoken to all three campaign teams and confirmed there are no formal talks on preferences or other cooperation planned or under way.

"I'm not surprised by the Greens calling for an alliance with the independent candidates," Senator Seselja said.

"They are all the same. Whether it's the Greens, or other extreme Green-style independents such as David Pocock, they're all cut from the same cloth.

"There are plenty of Canberrans who do not support Extinction Rebellion extreme Green policies, who do not support the crippling our national security by cutting the defence budget in half or decriminalising hard drugs like ice and heroin - and I am going to continue to stand up for those Canberrans."

Ms Steggall says the best advice she can give Mr Pocock is just be himself.

"I think he has to be true to himself. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what being an independent is about," she said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:

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Zali Steggall helps David Pocock as ACT progressives are urged to band together - The Canberra Times

President Joe Biden said what most of his party believes the other day: The Constitution is always evolving slightly in terms of additional rights or curtailing rights. That misconception is why Supreme Court confirmations have turned so nasty.

No: The whole point of a written Constitution is that it doesnt evolve except under the arduous procedures for amending it. The Supreme Court may make new constitutional law in the course of applying it to new situations, but thats supposed to be it.

Which is why progressives going back to President Woodrow Wilson have always hated the actual Constitution, as it limits their agenda.

These days, theyre eager to pack the high court with judges wholl read that agenda into the nations fundamental law, which is a lot easier than convincing the peoples elected representatives to endorse their program.

And so they play rank politics with the Supreme Court. They gin up personal smears against nominees from Clarence Thomas to Brett Kavanaugh in a bid to keep them off the court. They threaten to delegitimize the high court itself if it rules the wrong way threats that apparently got Chief Justice John Roberts to save the ObamaCare law.

For all their talk of a war on democracy, the left is engaged in a decades-long war on a vital branch of our Republic.

Continued here:
Biden exposes the truth about progressives and the Constitution - New York Post

Every year, the city comptroller issues a report listing all the tax breaks the city hands out. And every year, the 421-a abatement that provides decades of property tax exemptions to rental housing tops the list.

In the year ending last June, 421-a accounted for $1.73 billion in foregone revenue, up from $1.6 billion the year before. Now, with the program expiring at the end of June, lines are being drawn over whether to renew the abatement.

On one side are Gov. Kathy Hochul, who included a renamed version in her budget that makes only modest changes to the current plan, and the real estate industry, which claims that very little new housing will be built without it.

On the other side are progressive politicians especially City Comptroller Brad Lander and housing activists who denounce it as an unneeded subsidy to wealthy real estate developers that costs the city much-needed tax dollars.

The issue has become intertwined with the states leftward shift in Albany, the diminished clout of the real estate industry and the June primaries for governor and the legislature. But the stakes couldnt be higher since New York Citys future depends on building much more housing.

We need more housing supply, the program thats providing that supply needs to be updated, and that update needs to equitably serve New Yorkers, said Matt Murphy, executive director of the NYU Furman Center, which on Wednesday issued a report documenting how important the tax break is to the city.

But renewing it will be an uphill struggle for the governor.

My concern with the Hochul proposal is that it is just minor changes, said Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), the influential Democratic deputy majority leader in the state Senate, on the Brian Lehrer show Tuesday.

He added: 421-a is a boondoggle. We need more than modest changes. We need to end it and start over.

The 421-a tax exemption was first enacted in 1971, with the citys economy in its most severe post-war economic downturn, to spur developers to build housing. It has continued in various iterations since with occasional periods when the program lapsed amid disputes over its requirements.

It now accounts for the vast majority of new housing. In the 10 years ending in 2020, 421-a accounted for 68% of all new units in buildings with at least four units, Furman reported. Another related program accounted for an additional 21% meaning nine out of every 10 new units benefited from some kind of tax break.

And half of all affordable units since 2014 have been built under 421-a and a locally administered Article XI tax break, according to data from the city.

Historically, the affordable units required in Manhattan and a few other areas were targeted to people with modest incomes. But when the state legislature tweaked the program in 2016 renamed Affordable New York developers were alternatively allowed to set aside affordable units for people earning 130% of the median income in the region more than $155,300 for a family of four.

While intended to create housing for middle-class workers, the decision remains controversial as the housing needs of the lowest-income city residents, including homeless people, become ever more pressing.

Furman highlights another inequity in the program as currently crafted: It estimates half of all affordable studios were targeted to the lowest income groups, but only a quarter of two-bedroom units were available to those renters.

The 2016 revisions also effectively eliminated the ability of condos and coops to qualify for the tax break.

The Hochul plan targets both these issues.

Her proposal, tagged Affordable Neighborhoods for New Yorkers, would continue the 35-year property tax exemption for developers who set aside a percentage of units as affordable but target those to lower incomes.

The middle-income program is gone, while any project with 30 or more units would be required to provide 10% of units to households earning 40% or less of area median income, 10% for those at 60% or less AMI and 5% at 80% or less AMI.

The units must remain affordable even after the tax break expires, a significant change.

Hochul also proposed that condos and coops would again qualify for the tax break if all the units were restricted to New Yorkers earning up to 130% AMI for the full 40 years the tax break is provided.

The condo provision originated not with real estate groups but with legislators outside Manhattan, especially in The Bronx, who want to provide a path to homeownership for their constituents, insiders say.

Lander is vehemently opposed to the change, which he claims will encourage developers to build condominiums instead of rental units in much of the city.

He projects condos costing $600,000 with $4,000 a month payments could qualify under the program.

The proposal trades a small amount of more deeply affordable rental units in Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn for more market rate condos in the rest of the city, he said.

Real estate industry players say that scenario likely wont happen because making a condo development work is likely be too onerous.

Anyone pursuing a condo project would have to get approval from the citys Department of Housing Preservation and Development, is likely to want to line up financing from a city or state program, and will need go through the arduous process of filing reams of documents with the state attorney generals office, said Erica Buckley, a partner at the law firm Nixon Peabody specializing in such deals.

Affordable home ownership deals are really complicated and difficult. We will be lucky if three or four of every 10 potential developers use it, she added.

Lander is pushing a plan to link the expiration of the tax break to property tax reform. The city keeps property taxes extremely low compared to the suburbs for single-family homes, coops and condos but levies high taxes on rental buildings that now take on average 30% of a landlords operating income.

He says Mayor Eric Adams and the governor should establish a deadline of the end of the year to push through reform to lower rental taxes. If such a plan fails, he said, would reconsider his opposition to some sort of tax break.

Other experts note that property tax reform has been talked about for decades without any action. Taxes also arent the only problem in building rental units, notes Martha Stark, the former city finance commissioner who has been a leader in the fight for property tax reform. She ticks off the high cost of land and construction, which lead to apartments costing more than many New Yorkers can afford.

In any event, the Furman report notes, the current 421-a tax breaks will remain in effect until they expire, the cost is unlikely to change through at least 2030 even if the program ends, and the city will see only small increases in tax revenue for years.

No one disputes that the city needs more housing. We want more product and I am in favor of more market rate development, Lander said.

The city needs 560,000 new units of housing by 2030 to make up the deficit in new construction over the past decade and accommodate expected population and job growth in the post-pandemic city, according to a study by the consulting firm AKRF commissioned by the Real Estate Board of New York.

Insiders say the real estate industry won the first battle by convincing the governor to include her proposal in the budget, a move that came after they emerged as a key contributor to her election campaign. (People would discuss the politics of the tax abatement only on a not-for attribution basis.)

Doing so means the legislators opposed to the tax break will have to decide between eliminating it and other programs they want the governor to support. If voted on alone, the tax break would not pass the legislature, the sources say.

The condo tax break is likely to be shelved, the insiders say, calling it a placeholder for a more extensive homeownership program the governor envisions to meet the needs of the boroughs outside Manhattan.

Other real estate groups with less of a stake in the tax abatement fear a tradeoff where the legislature renews the tax break but passes a good cause eviction bill.

The current good cause proposal would extend a type of rent control to currently market-rate housing, although it is likely to be watered down before passage.

Some insiders put the odds of 421-as renewal at 50-50 and say the building trade unions will need to support the plan. The unions seek to expand a provision that currently requires specific wages for construction and building service workers on projects in Manhattan and some waterfront sections of Brooklyn.

An endorsement from Adams will also be crucial, and insiders note the mayor and governor are trying very hard to be on the same side of important issues.

A statement from City Hall said the mayor has not taken a position:

New York City needs more housing that is more affordable in more neighborhoods, and the administration is absolutely committed to using every tool in our toolbox to achieve that. We are currently reviewing the governors proposal and look forward to participating actively in any discussion about affordable housing in the city.

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Progressives and Hochul Battle Over Fate of $1.7B Developer Tax Break - THE CITY