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.
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“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.
Moreover, the State Department in September awarded $100,000 to Al-Quds Open University to boost “community service” and “action planning” for children in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, the Washington Free Beacon reported. That same Gaza-based institution posted on social media in the wake of the Hamas attack against Israel last weekend, “Glory and eternity to our righteous martyrs.”
“Congress should take a very hard look at the grants,” Reed Rubinstein, ex-deputy associate attorney general for Trump’s Justice Department, told the Washington Examiner.
The attorney is now investigations director for America First Legal, a group staffed by Trump administration officials that is suing Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for “illegally subsidizing terrorism” and purportedly skirting the Taylor Force Act. Federal law bars the U.S. government from funneling taxpayer funds to the Palestinian Authority, which operates in Gaza, until the PA quits its “Pay to Slay” program that allocates money to terrorists and their families.
USAID under Biden granted $78,000 to the Community Development and Continuing Education Institute, which is in the West Bank and took part in a celebration for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, grant records show. The institute’s board members have also spoken fondly of Hamas terrorists after missile attacks against Israel, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Natuf for Environment and Community Development, a Gaza-based group backed by the Palestinian Islamic Bank, which has been slammed by Israel for Hamas ties and sanctioned by the U.S., has been cut various checks from the State Department, including $2,900 for an “art and graffiti therapy” initiative and $19,800 to “raise the environmental awareness of the community,” the Washington Examiner reported.
Between September 2022 and December 2023, the State Department has a $41,000 agreement with Fares Al-Arab, a charity in Gaza, for a journalism program. Fares Al-Arab reportedly worked with Hamas on a housing project, among other terror-tied partnerships.
“There’s a lot of moving parts here about how Hamas has infiltrated the United States,” Greendorfer said.
On Friday, Hamas released a video showing Israeli toddlers it is keeping hostage. The Washington Examiner spoke with an Israeli Defense Forces soldier named Moran Mina, who described his family’s fear and search for hope after Hamas kidnapped Mina’s 84-year-old grandmother, Ditza Heiman.
Over the last week, Republican lawmakers have particularly taken aim at the Biden administration over its prior Palestinian aid and relationship with Iran. A Semafor report in late September prompted congressional investigators to demand answers over a covert propaganda initiative headed by Iran’s Foreign Ministry that has allegedly included Pentagon official Ariane Tabatabai, “influential overseas academics,” and former aides to U.S. Iran envoy Robert Malley, whose alleged mishandling of classified materials resulted in the suspension of his security clearance in June.
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“Iran is a regime that has focused its foreign and security policy at doing a death by 1,000 cuts kind of war against Israel,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank focused on Iranian issues, told the Washington Examiner. “What needs to happen is a review of the Biden administration’s overall Iran policy.”
The White House and its National Security Council did not reply to requests for comment.
