"The Biden administration is offering nearly $1 million for groups to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, an effort that will delegitimize Israel, according to sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.
The State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) is soliciting nonprofit groups to apply for grant money up to $987,654 to 'strengthen accountability and human rights in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza,' according to a grant notice first posted online in mid-February.
Groups applying for the grant money will investigate alleged crimes inside Israel and these territories and 'collect, archive, and maintain human rights documentation to support justice and accountability and civil society-led advocacy efforts, which may include documentation of legal or security sector violations and housing, land, and property rights,' according to the State Department.
Israel's defenders on Capitol Hill expressed outrage over the program and said the Biden administration is helping fund international efforts to delegitimize Israel and boost the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The grant is also fueling concerns about the Biden administration's relationship with Israel and its hiring of officials who have been critical of the Jewish state.
'This is disgraceful,' Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told the Free Beacon.
'The Biden administration wants to use American taxpayer money to subsidize the international NGO campaign to demonize and isolate Israel, which then serves as a basis for anti-Semitic efforts to boycott and wage economic warfare against Israeli Jews. Congress did not appropriate funds for this purpose and has repeatedly condemned such campaigns.'
The State Department, Cruz said, 'should immediately cancel this program and investigate how it was approved...
The Biden administration recently hired Elizabeth Campbell, former director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees, as a deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. UNRWA has long faced criticism by lawmakers and regional experts for promoting anti-Semitism and terrorism in Palestinian schools. Campbell, in her work as a top UNRWA official, oversaw the agency's controversial use of school textbooks that promote anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews, the Free Beacon reported earlier this week.
The anti-Israel grants are part of a broader policy inside the Biden administration that aims to elevate Palestinians and attack Israel, according to former U.S. officials and aides who spoke to the Free Beacon..."