Biden Admin Officials Coordinated With Anti-Israel Group To Isolate Israeli Jews in West Bank, Emails Show
DAWN is leveraging clout with the Biden administration to push sanctions on Israeli military units for alleged human rights crimes
Adam Kredo
May 6, 2024
Senior Biden administration officials have been coordinating since at least early 2022 with an outside anti-Israel group to isolate Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank, internal government emails show.
The previously unreported emails show top officials at both the State and Defense Departments fielding concerns from Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a human rights group that is highly critical of the Israeli government and has lobbied the Biden administration to cut off military aid to the Jewish state.
At the time, DAWN sparked an internal push at both departments to stop American officials from engaging with Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank and other contested areas of Jerusalem. DAWN is leveraging its clout with the Biden administration to push fresh sanctions on Israeli military units for alleged human rights crimes, having provided the State Department with a list of Israelis to punish. DAWN's anti-Israel lobbying campaign traces back to at least 2022, with the internal government emails shining new light on the level of access and influence it peddles inside the Biden administration.
In February of that year, DAWN's then-advocacy director, Adam Shapiro, emailed two top Pentagon officials—Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, and Jennifer Zakriski, then the deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
In the email, Shapiro raised concerns about U.S. officials engaging with Israeli "settlers," citing "media reports documenting a trip to Hebron by 2 US military officers, organized by an [Israel Defense Forces] commander and hosted by a settler affiliated with the Hebron Fund," a nonprofit group that provides education about the city of Hebron's Jewish history.
"From where I sit," Shapiro wrote, "I think this raises serious questions about the purpose of this trip to occupied territory and the ideological nature of the presentation and messaging—and seeming endorsement by US military personnel."
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https://freebeacon.com/israel/biden-admin-officials-coordinated-with-anti-israel-group-to-isolate-israeli-jews-in-west-bank-emails-show/
