The release by the House Judiciary Committee of a memorandum documenting how the Biden administration funded non-governmental organizations to oppose Prime Minister Netanyahu is a scandal of foreign interference if there ever was one. The report comes the same week as Ambassador Mike Huckabee prompted outrage when he strode into a Tel Aviv courtroom to support the premier in his criminal trial with a Bugs Bunny doll.
“What’s up, doc?” According to Republican lawmakers, millions of dollars flowed from the Department of State and USAID to fund non-governmental organizations opposed to Mr. Netanyahu and his plan to reform Israel’s judiciary. The report, “The Biden-Harris Administration’s Funding of Anti-Netanyahu Non-Governmental Organizations,” accuses the last administration of having “neglected” its oversight responsibilities and misusing funds.
Follow the money, say the driving forces behind the report, Congressmen Brian Mast and Jim Jordan, both Republicans. The flow of funds, the report argues, gave teeth to President Biden’s vocal opposition to the judicial reform plans that consumed Israel in the months before Hamas attacked on October 7, 2023. The 46th president lectured that Israel “cannot continue down this road.” Mr. Biden also called the effort “unfortunate.”
The sums America devoted to thwarting Mr. Netanyahu’s agenda appear to be staggering. One nonprofit, the PEF Israel Endowment Fund, directed $884 million to more than 1,000 Israeli organizations, some of which were devoted to opposing Mr. Netanyahu’s plans. The report reckons that a portion of that “originated with the U.S. government.” PEF’s political agenda could be a violation of its tax-exempt status.
Take Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which received some $50 million in grants from the state department and USAID between 2021 and 2024. In 2023 a subsidiary of RPA, the report discloses, “donated more than $370,000 to groups directly involved in the anti-Netanyahu judicial reform protests.” The investigation argues that the funds “contributed directly and indirectly to the judicial reform protests that sought to undermine the Israeli government.”
The report suggests that at least one of the grants could be even more nefarious than the effort to undermine Israel’s democracy. Nearly $1 million in American taxpayer funds have since 2016 flowed to an NGO called the Bayader Association for Environment and Development, which the lawmakers determined has held “joint events with Hamas leaders.” The most recent USAID grant to the group was made on October 1, 2023.
The director of the Middle East Forum, Gregg Roman, testified before Congress that the funding of terror-adjacent groups “is a problem that began under the Obama administration and was exacerbated under the Biden administration.” One organization funded by USAID, the American Near East Refugee Agency, has been found by the Israel Law Center to “actively indoctrinate children in hatred and killing of Israeli civilians.”
A better defense of Mr. Trump’s slashing of USAID would be difficult to imagine. The deluge of money to Israel from Washington to foil the plan on which Mr. Netanyahu won a governing coalition is hardly befitting an ally. This is not to say that there was not legitimate opposition to the judicial plan — there was, and is, lots of it. Yet the cataract of shekels likely exacerbated the tensions tearing at Israeli society before Hamas attacked.
This is almost an American tradition. Democrats have long spent money in Israel in hopes of tilting the playing field. President Clinton famously loosed Stanley Greenberg, renowned pollster, in an effort to parry Mr. Netanyahu’s inexorable drive to the summit of Israeli politics. Mr. Greenberg coached Prime Minister Barak, and in subsequent years served as an adviser to the Jewish state’s Labor Party, now fallen into semi-desuetude.
Mr. Huckabee’s appearance at Mr. Netanyahu’s trial was called in Haaretz an “American, Mafioso-like intimidation tactic on a democratic ally’s independent justice system.” What to make, then, of the Biden administration’s work behind the scenes to tip the scales of judicial reform? At least Mr. Trump’s envoy strode into the courtroom in the bright light of day. The opposition of Mr. Biden to Israel’s elected leader is a greater affront for its subterfuge.
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