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2025-07-23 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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A billion for 'Maidan'. Mass protests in Israel were paid for by Americans
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] American auditors from the House Judiciary Committee have published the results of a preliminary investigation into the financial activities of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, recognized as an undesirable organization in Russia)
| …and in America, too, thanks to President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE… |
during the Joe Biden administration. The published data has caused a real scandal.
 Most decidedly a scandal. Mr. Tsukanov gives us more names.
As a result of the audit, a number of Israeli non-profit organizations were accused of destabilizing the situation in the Jewish state. And with the money of American taxpayers.
These accusations could well cost the Israeli opposition its seats in the upcoming elections, especially if it turns out that much of their “popular support” was orchestrated.
However, Tel Aviv is currently focused on other threats. But they also come from non-profit organizations.
"UNDERMINING" UNDER THE PREMIERE
The investigation, initiated by the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees, began in March and was part of Donald Trump's campaign to audit USAID.
A review of 380 financial statements found that six non-profit organizations (NPOs) registered in Israel or indirectly affiliated with it were involved in the accumulation and redistribution of government loans and grants.
The money was then used to finance destabilizing actions in the Jewish state. In addition to USAID, funds were allocated from the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Agriculture,
| …not what we actually call them, but a reasonable translation from the Russian style… |
the State Department, and the Pentagon and “transited” to smaller NGOs involved in solving “democratic problems” in various parts of Israel.
One of the central links in the shadow scheme, according to the auditors' findings, is PEF Israel Endowment Funds, which served as the main channel for collecting and distributing donations to Israeli NGOs in the United States.
Other heavyweights of non-profit activity were implicated in the scandal: Blue White Future, which promotes the idea of peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine, the consulting company Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the public funds Jewish Communal Fund and Middle East Peace Dialogue Network, as well as the youth movement Movement for Quality Government in Israel, which is considered a “forge of civil activists” working in the interests of Israel.
| A certain sector of Israel, though definitely not the whole. |
Auditors calculated that about a billion dollars were spent on destabilizing and undermining the Israeli government under various pretexts. Of this, more than 850 million went to funding groups that stirred up protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, both on the “corruption” line and in the context of the conflict in the Gaza Strip. The rest went to critics of judicial reform.
The report notes that a promising area of USAID funding was to stir up protest sentiments among the ultra-Orthodox ("haredim") after the Israeli Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling on the admissibility of their conscription into military service. However, at the last moment, for unknown reasons, this idea was abandoned.
| And yet they’ve been protesting anyway — we’ve just been ignoring it as an internal issue. |
A TRUMP CARD FOR THE RIGHT
Although most of the findings in the auditors' report were labeled as "possible" and "highly likely," they were enough to slam the outgoing presidential administration.
For example, the Republican Jewish Coalition, which unites lobbyists of Jewish origin, considered the investigation’s findings “outrageous” and demanded “immediate comments” from former White House officials.
They called the very fact of financing protests organized in a country that is a strategic ally of the United States (and, moreover, carried out “from the pockets” of American taxpayers) unacceptable and “undermining the long-standing friendship” between Washington and Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu's supporters also considered the accusatory basis sufficient for criticizing the "fifth column" inside the country. True, so far it is mainly along the lines of loyal opinion leaders - the politicians themselves remain silent. But only for the time being.
| Hoping not to have to burn bridges with the Democratic Party... |
Moreover, the American auditors gave Netanyahu’s cabinet a long-term trump card by catching several NGOs mentioned in the report in “potential financing” of Hamas and other groups and movements hostile to Tel Aviv.
For example, the NGO Bayader Association for Environment and Development, which maintained close contacts with a number of “moderate” Hamas representatives, received a generous contribution from USAID just a week before the start of the anti-Israeli Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Another socio-political NGO, Tides Network, which is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, received loans totaling more than $2.6 million in the first year of the Gaza operation.
It is noteworthy that some of the tranches passed through the scandalous “PEF Israel Endowment Funds” and were sometimes supplemented by donations from other sources. The auditors were unable to track what exactly the grants were spent on.
As a result, the Netanyahu cabinet can, if necessary, easily shift the blame for “strengthening the position of Hamas” to the American Democrats, who have provided support to Tel Aviv’s opponents not only within Israel, but also on its “sensitive borders.”
HELP FOR HAMAS
However, for now Tel Aviv has no need to fully play the card of American Democrats interfering in the country's internal affairs. Especially since its own similar scandal is brewing under its nose.
It recently became known that the local non-profit organization “AID48”, associated with the “Joint Arab List” (RAAM), was involved in funding organizations and NGOs that are considered terrorist in Israel.
The driving force behind the indictment is ultra-conservative MK Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism Party). According to him, “billions of dollars” flowed through NGO accounts, feeding the coffers of Hamas and other Palestinian forces that control the Gaza Strip.
Also, according to parliamentary prosecutors, part of the funds went through third parties to the Judea and Samaria region under the guise of tranches for the purchase of weapons for Jewish settlers developing the West Bank. And from there, through shadow channels, these weapons got to Gaza.
| Eh? We’ll need to hear more about that, because it’s definitely counterintuitive. |
Despite the fact that most of the accusations by Sukkot and his colleagues are based on the findings of investigators from their organization, the Choose Life Forum, which represents the interests of families of terrorism victims, and are not supported by a serious evidence base, they receive active support from conservative forces.
Many Knesset members do not like their proximity to the Joint Arab List, which they traditionally tend to see as “hidden lobbyists” for the interests of the Palestinian population.
| It was, after all, an invention of the Obama State Department in an effort to increase the effectiveness of the Arab-Israeli political parties. |
Raam representatives reject the accusations as “political blackmail,” and call the attacks on AID48 an attempt to “cover up the abuse of force” in Gaza.
| Ra’am is the political party of the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel, the so-called Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement, headed by MK Mansour Abbas, the first Arab party leader to join a ruling coalition of the Israeli government. |
Moreover, with the start of the operation in the enclave, Arab politicians directed NGO funds to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in areas with high intensity of military operations, while official Tel Aviv ignored this problem until the very end and began to deal with it only under pressure from the US and the EU.
Netanyahu and his entourage are not interfering in the conflict, seeing it as a chance to redirect the anger of ultra-conservative forces from the “haredi” issue (which previously put the government on the brink of illegitimacy) to the Arab minority.
The potential loss of the alliance with Raam, which has about five mandates, looks like the lesser of two evils for Netanyahu’s coalition, since a final break with the Orthodox parties would entail the loss of at least fifteen seats, and in the long term, early elections.
| The election is scheduled for October 2026 unless the government loses the confidence of the Knesset before then. |
Both investigations, in the US and in Israel, are still ongoing.
| Each report reveals more funds flowing to the Israeli left in a vain attempt to drive Bibi out of politics. Annoying as it has been, it’s certainly a hefty donation — in the Keynesian fashion — to the Israeli economy, which is most assuredly not what his Democratic followers intended. |
The amounts of infusions cited by auditors may change in the near future, and in a positive direction. In addition, new, previously undisclosed figures may appear in the case. That is why the Israeli authorities prefer to wait a little and, if necessary, increase the dividends from scandals.
Netanyahu and his supporters will most likely play this trump card in full closer to the Knesset elections, pressing the point that the “popular support” of the opposition leaders was just a fiction, and his main critics are themselves involved in scandals and intrigues, including shadow financing of Hamas. And this movement serves as the main trigger for Israeli society after 2023.
If such a combination is successful, the far-right government will not only retain control over the country, but will also increase its mandates.
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Posted by badanov 2025-07-23 00:00||
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