Under President Joe Biden, the federal government has dished out hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to Gaza and West Bank-based groups with ties to terror factions, including Hamas, records show.
The grants, which were awarded by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, have become increasingly relevant amid the Israel-Gaza conflict beginning last Saturday due to Hamas attacking the Jewish state of Israel. The death toll in Israel has reached 1,300, while at least 27 U.S. citizens have been killed, and 1,500 people in Gaza are dead, according to estimates. Around 20 Americans are also missing, the White House said this week.
The willful blindness of this administration to what's going on is just extensive," said Marc Greendorfer, an attorney who heads Zachor Legal Institute, a pro-Israel think tank that filed an amicus brief last week urging the Supreme Court to accept a case brought on behalf of Americans injured by Hamas that alleges its foreign fundraising arm is the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, an anti-Israel coalition.
"The Biden administration has been funding all of these radical groups that are fronts for terror," he told the Washington Examiner.
On Thursday, the United States and Qatar agreed to restrict Iran from accessing $6 billion the Biden administration released in September from South Korea in exchange for American prisoners following members of Congress raising national security concerns. U.S. and Israeli officials are still reviewing allegations that Iran helped train Hamas before the attack after reports on the matter.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government in recent years approved large sums in Palestinian aid, including $250 million "in humanitarian and economic/development assistance to people living in Gaza and the West Bank," the State Department told the Washington Examiner. USAID's inspector general raised concerns in a report last month that agency officials have not adequately evaluated risks in aid to Gaza and the West Bank, while the State Department in 2021 worried there was a "high risk" of Hamas deriving "indirect, unintentional benefit" from Gaza aid, according to documents obtained by the watchdog Protect the Public's Trust.
Biden's also pledged cash to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which has faced scrutiny for Hamas connections, on the heels of former President Donald Trump cutting funding to the U.N. group. Beyond this aid, as well as other Iran relief that foreign policy experts say demonstrate how the U.S. government is boosting terror allies, the Biden administration steered various taxpayer-backed grants to organizations that have partnered with terror factions, expressed support for Hamas, or shared other alleged terror affiliations.House Republicans in September notably called on the State Department in late September to investigate its move to award $90,000 combined in grants to the Phoenix Center for Research and Field Studies, which is located in Gaza. The demand came after a Washington Examiner report on research from the Israel-based watchdog NGO Monitor finding the center has partnered with leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, two U.S.-designated terror groups.
