The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Government Relations Dan Pollak released the following statement:
The ZOA strongly condemns and is appalled by the Biden administration’s grant to pay NGOs to demonize Israel and to provide “accountability” for “atrocities.” According to a grant notice posted in February, $987,654 is to be supplied to an NGO by the Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) to charge Israel with human rights abuses in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. This is the same State Department bureau which is to be headed by Sarah Margon, an anti-Israel activist and former executive with the outrageously biased Soros-funded Human Rights Watch (see Zionist Organization of America | Biden Appointments Watch – Zionist Organization of America (zoa.org)). The grant proposal is proof that even before Margon is confirmed, there are major issues in the Biden administration with vicious anti-Israel animus.
The actual grant notice published by the Department of State has disgraceful content. It includes a “focus on […] survivors of atrocities.” The only atrocities the United States government has ever documented are terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians and human rights violations by the terrorist dictatorship Palestinian Authority which pays Arabs to murder Jews. The grants are supposed to be ‘locally led,’ which is Washington-speak for affiliated with radical elements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Israel recently took action against six NGOs with direct links to terror organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said:
“One million dollars of taxpayer money for anti-Israel propaganda is outrageous, but this is unfortunately typical of the policies inside the Biden Administration. ZOA has documented the numerous Biden nominees and appointees who are overtly hostile to Israel in the Department of State, USAID, and frankly throughout the executive branch of government. Once the anti-Israel NGO produces a report funded by this grant, it will be used as supposed justification for BDS and other measures against Israel from the Europeans and at the UN. Congress did not intend for any funds to be used in this way. A robust Congressional reaction is required to cancel this program and investigate the administration officials who are responsible for this U.S. government antisemitism.
“Why is nominee for U.S. antisemitism watchdog, Deborah Lipstadt, deafeningly silent. Yet when the great Ambassador David Friedman was nominated for the U.S. Ambassadorship to Israel, Lipstadt was screaming against this exceptional Zionist’s confirmation, while she was defending the extremist anti-Israel New Israel Fund.
“These payments are symptomatic of the larger problem with administration policy towards funding the anti-peace Palestinian Arab regime, and violating the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits such funding. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being sent directly and indirectly to the corrupt terrorist dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority, which continues to pay terrorists generous lifetime pensions to murder Jews with fungible monies supplied by European and American governments. This must stop. Representatives Pelosi and Hoyer, and Senator Schumer and others, must speak out forcefully and relentlessly. Jewish and Christian leaders must speak out immediately. Senator Ted Cruz said of this policy simply and powerfully: ‘This is a disgrace.’”
ZOA Director of Government Relations Dan Pollak said:
“Many members of Congress have already spoken out against this insane misuse of taxpayer dollars. ZOA urges bipartisan action in the House and Senate to use their oversight powers to force accountability on the Biden administration. This program must be cancelled immediately.”