Biden's State Department used data from anti-Israel org to compile 'report card' on Jewish state, internal emails show.
WASHINGTON FREE BEACON - Figures from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have long been identified as misleading
The Biden administration produced an internal "report card" on Israeli activities in the West Bank based on data from a United Nations organization closely linked to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, according to government emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The report, based on data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), was produced in January 2023, several months after an Israeli election virtually guaranteed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would return to power. At the time, the Biden administration was preparing for diplomatic clashes with the Netanyahu government. Those divisions are now on full display as the United States pressures Israel to preemptively ink a ceasefire deal with Hamas and stop defending itself from Hezbollah militants along its northern border.
An internal State Department email chain reviewed by the Free Beacon shows the creation and dissemination of the report on so-called Israeli settlement growth. U.S. officials described the report as an update from previous data compiled by the Biden administration on Israeli activities in the West Bank.
Prior to Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror strike on Israel, the construction of Jewish homes in contested areas of the West Bank was a central source of tension between the Biden administration and the Israeli government, particularly under Netanyahu. When Netanyahu's conservative governing coalition retook power in 2023, the Biden administration appeared ready to clash with Israel over the issue.
"Our very own [redacted name] updated the open-source report card he produced this time last year," wrote Hady Amr, the Biden administration's special representative for Palestinian affairs. "This draft conveys the average annual rates [of growth], and as you can see, across board."
A separate 2016 report by NGO Monitor, one of many published by the group, details how OCHA is a driving force in the United Nation’s campaign to delegitimize Israel.
Republican lawmakers have long raised concerns about OCHA’s credibility and the State Department’s reliance on its Israel-related information.
"The Biden administration has given OCHA uncountable millions of dollars, including tens of millions in confidential grants and cash, and sometimes they won’t even disclose the final recipients to Congress," Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Free Beacon. "OCHA funds, coordinates, and serves as a hub for NGOs to produce anti-Israel propaganda, which it then compiles and circulates."
"It’s no wonder that the Biden administration would take that propaganda and launder it through the State Department, and it’s also no wonder they’re even now redacting the documents so the public can’t see them."