Posted on 06/07/23
| News Source: Jewish Press
The Biden administration’s outgoing ambassador to Israel personally signed off on a controversial $1 million grant to a program critics said was meant to delegitimize Israel, according to internal State Department communications obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
U.S. ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides approved the funding project in a January 2022 internal "action memo," according to a trove of internal emails obtained by the America First Legal Foundation through a Freedom of Information Act request for information about the grant. The emails detail how Nides personally cleared the State Department to offer $987,654 for groups to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Those applying for the grant were instructed to probe the Israeli government for "documentation of legal or security sector violations and housing, land, and property rights." The cash would essentially empower activist groups critical of Israel to pursue false claims that the Jewish state is systematically abusing Palestinians and stealing their land. With taxpayer cash at their disposal, these nonprofit groups could advance an agenda that pro-Israel advocates say fuels the delegitimization of Israel on the international stage by incentivizing a disproportionate focus on the supposed missteps and abuses of the Jewish State.
The taxpayer-funded initiative, which the Free Beacon first reported in March 2022, prompted a congressional investigation. Lawmakers accused the Biden administration of working to isolate Israel and bolster the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which wages economic warfare on the Jewish state. The United States government, critics said, should not be funding efforts to paint Israel as a pariah state.
The ambassador’s involvement in the funding effort is certain to attract congressional scrutiny as Israel’s defenders on Capitol Hill worry the Biden administration is alienating the Jewish State. President Joe Biden has been openly critical of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the State Department was found to be bankrolling far-left groups seeking to topple the prime minister’s governing coalition.
The emails show State Department officials working to get the grant approved so they could post it publicly on the department’s website. Subsequent emails show State Department employees discussing potential grant proposals submitted by various organizations looking to cash in. America First Legal, which began investigating the grant last year, says the emails indicate Nides, who is expected to vacate his post this summer, signed off before the grant was published.