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A fraud complaint regarding COVID-19 relief funds cost an anti-Zionist advocacy group a million bucks
Asaf Elia-Shalev reports for JTA.
One of the most reviled adversaries of the pro-Israel community was just dealt a major blow in a fraud complaint brought by an activist attorney.
The anti-Zionist advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza and wants the U.S. to end military aid to the country, agreed to pay a penalty of nearly $700,000 (U.S.) to settle an allegation of financial fraud, according to a Wednesday announcement from the U.S. Justice Department.
The resolution of the case, which centres on JVP’s application for COVID-19 relief funds in 2020, puts a significant strain on the group’s financial health—the group’s annual budget has hovered a little below $3 million for the past several years—and gives the group’s many critics a potent new weapon against it.
Awesome. And yeah, who would have imagined that an antisemitic group would also engage in fraud…
US anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace to pay $600,000-plus penalty after fraud allegations | The Times of Israel https://t.co/m11SH0Hgi8
— Andrés Spokoiny 🌟🌟🌟 (@Spokoiny) January 15, 2025
But JVP’s legal trouble was not just a lucky gift for its detractors—it was the direct result of one enterprising attorney’s strategy of weaponizing the law against critics of Israel. JVP is the latest in a string of left-wing and pro-Palestinian groups he has succeeded in damaging.
Daniel Abrams sics prosecutors on his targets using a law that allows private citizens to become whistleblowers when they discover alleged government fraud. The law also lets him collect a portion of the penalty paid to the government. He’s built a one-man business around the enterprise, called the Zionist Advocacy Center or TZAC.
“I’m a passionate Zionist and I’m also an attorney,” Abrams told Politico in an article published last year. “And so it’s natural to say, ‘Well, how can I combine those two things?’ And that’s what I started doing about 10 years ago.”
Meet the activist waging a legal war against Israel’s critics — and pocketing a lot of money https://t.co/mUplXBKYWn
— POLITICO (@politico) July 10, 2024
His earnings in this work as of last year are at least $1.7 million, according to a tally based on court records by the New York Times. Abrams is one of several attorneys making money by hunting for pandemic fraud, but Abrams is in it for more than just the earnings.
“We’re in America,” Abrams told Politico. “People have an absolute right to attack Israel unfairly, to slander Israel and so on. However, from my perspective, they don’t have the right to take government money to support their work that they’re not entitled to.”
He refers to his solo act as “lawfare” on behalf of Israel.
Now, a major voice on the right is calling on the incoming Trump administration to make lawfare the central tactic of a national crackdown on antisemitism. The idea appears in Project Esther, a proposal from the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, which urges the federal government to target groups it deems supportive of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, including Jewish Voice for Peace.
In this case, Abrams found that JVP had received $340,000 through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. He believed the group should have been ineligible for funding—money that millions of American companies and nonprofits had also received during the pandemic—due to rules excluding entities “primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities.”
He filed a lawsuit in late 2021 accusing JVP of lying on its application form, citing the group’s stated mission of campaigning to change U.S. policy on Israel. The federal prosecutors who looked at the case agreed with Abrams’ assessment and decided to move forward with it. If the matter had gone to trial and prosecutors had prevailed, JVP would have had to pay back in damages triple the amount it received.
Instead, a settlement limits the penalty to only double the amount, with no admission of liability by JVP. The group maintains that “any misstatements in this application were inadvertent,” according to the Justice Department. JVP’s leadership did not respond to a request for comment.
Abrams, who also did not respond to a request for comment, is owed about $68,000, or 10 percent of the penalty, according to a copy of the settlement agreement from the Justice Department. He will also collect about $1,800 from JVP, an amount representing his fees and expenses in filing the initial whistleblower lawsuit.
The JVP settlement comes several months after the resolution of another Abrams-instigated case against a Jewish group that is critical of Israel. In September, Americans For Peace Now, the U.S. fundraising arm of a progressive Israeli group that advocates for the two-state solution, reached a deal with federal prosecutors to pay $262,000 over an identical allegation.
The group’s president and CEO, Hadar Susskind, told the New York Times it settled to avoid the cost of litigation but that the group genuinely didn’t consider itself a political organization when it applied for the pandemic relief money.
Abrams is also behind two earlier pandemic fraud settlements signed by left-leaning Washington think tanks: the Middle East Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies.
Before the pandemic, when Abrams had just started his Zionist Advocacy Center work, he waged lawfare with a focus on humanitarian groups working in Gaza, such as Norwegian People’s Aid, that had received contracts from the American government through USAID. He alleged that his targets had lied when certifying to USAID they had no links to terrorists. Norwegian People’s Aid paid a penalty of $2 million to settle the matter.
Not all of the cases Abrams brings are successful. In 2020, a judge threw out a case he brought against the New Israel Fund, a group supporting left-wing causes in Israel, in which he alleged the group had abused its tax-exempt status.
And, in 2015 he sued the humanitarian group founded by the late President Jimmy Carter, accusing the Carter Center of support for terrorists over a gathering for Palestinian politicians in which it served them “physical assets of fruits, cookies, bottled water, and presumably other foods and drinks.” Government prosecutors dropped the case.
The post A fraud complaint regarding COVID-19 relief funds cost an anti-Zionist advocacy group a million bucks appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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French Authorities Replant Memorial Olive Tree and Launch Seventh Ilan Halimi Award
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
French authorities planted a new olive tree on Wednesday to honor Ilan Halimi, nearly a decade after the young French Jewish man was tortured to death and two weeks after a previous commemorative tree was cut down.
Hervé Chevreau, mayor of the norther Paris suburb Épinay, announced that several olive trees will be replanted in Halimi’s memory, praising “a remarkable outpouring of solidarity” reflected in the donations.
With a commemorative ceremony on Wednesday, the first olive tree will be planted in Saint-Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris in the Île-de-France region.
“In the context of rising antisemitic acts, the community aims to reaffirm its steadfast commitment against hatred, forgetfulness, and indifference,” Chevreau said in a statement. “This gesture of reflection and resilience responds to the serious act of vandalism in Épinay-sur-Seine, where the commemorative tree was deliberately cut down.”
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, he was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. Earlier this month, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, numerous prominent figures attended, including France’s Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia, Yonathan Arfi, President of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), Labor Minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, and Minister for Gender Equality and the Fight Against Discrimination Aurore Bergé.
At the event, Bergé announced the launch of the seventh edition of the Ilan Halimi Award, marking 20 years since his disappearance.
Established in 2018, the award seeks to fight racism and antisemitism by inspiring young people to take action.
Since then, French authorities have annually recognized projects led by young people aged 13 to 25 from schools, universities, associations, and civic or integration programs.
“The launch of the 2026 edition of the Ilan Halimi Award in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois is more than an act of remembrance — it is a pledge to the future,” Bergé said during the ceremony.
Ils peuvent tronçonner un arbre, nous replanterons.
Ils peuvent abattre un arbre, nous ferons vivre la mémoire.Nous ne laisserons pas Ilan Halimi disparaître une nouvelle fois.
Le Prix Ilan Halimi 2026 est lancé. pic.twitter.com/Tn9SxlARJA
— Aurore Bergé (@auroreberge) September 2, 2025
Last week, two 19-year-old Tunisian twin brothers, undocumented and with prior convictions for theft and violence, were arrested in France for allegedly vandalizing and cutting down Halimi’s memorial.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
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After Deadly Firebombing, Boulder Jews Forced to Hide Weekly Hostage March Due to Escalating Harassment
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, US, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A group of Jewish activists advocating for the Israeli hostages still held captive by Hamas terrorists in Gaza has announced plans to cease publicizing planned demonstrations and increase security in response to continued community intimidation in the months following a June 1 Molotov cocktail attack that left one person dead and 13 injured.
The group Run for Their Lives includes more than 230 chapters globally, and the one based in Boulder will now take extra measures to protect participants since the attack, for which authorities have charged alleged assailant Mohamed Sabry Soliman, which has in turn provoked further opposition.
Videos reviewed by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) show anti-Israel demonstrators calling event attendees “Nazi,” “racist,” and “genocidal c**t.”
A local politician running for city council has also demonized the hostage supporters.
CBS Colorado reported that Aaron Stone allegedly called Rachel Amaru, the chapter’s Jewish founder, a “Nazi,” a slur he defended as “a very strong word to use.” He further said that in looking at Amaru he was “not seeing a Jewish person” but rather “someone who is walking down the street talking about 20 hostages and ignoring the two million Palestinian hostages that are being kept in Gaza.”
Brandon Rattiner, senior director of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, said in a statement that “participants are facing a level of harassment that makes it impossible to continue safely in public view.”
Stefanie Clarke, who serves as co-executive director of Stop Antisemitism Colorado, added in a statement that “it is unacceptable that less than three months after a deadly antisemitic attack, Jews in Boulder are once again being forced into hiding.”
Clarke stated that “we will not be intimidated, and we will not be driven out of public spaces where we should feel safe. The fact that someone seeking a seat on City Council is at the center of this harassment should be cause for alarm. Boulder cannot claim to be a city of inclusion and justice while giving a platform to Jew hate.”
The mountain states regional branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its own statement in support of the pro-Israel activists.
“We stand in firm solidarity with the Boulder chapter of Run for Their Lives following their difficult decision to no longer publicly disclose the location of their events,” the organization said. “It is deeply unfortunate that after enduring the horrific June 1 firebomb attack that resulted in the death of a community member, participants now face such persistent harassment that they must keep their gatherings secret to simply stay safe.”
On July 15, Soliman, who pleaded not guilty, waved his right to a preliminary hearing in a case where the 150 state charges and 12 federal charges include murder and attempted murder. He will see a judge on Tuesday for a scheduled arraignment and faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Prosecutors say that Soliman, an Egyptian who came to the United States on a B-2 Tourist Visa in August 2022, told police that “he wanted to kill all Zionist people” and that he sought to murder 20 of the demonstrators. A note found in his car read “Zionism is our enemies untill [sic] Jerusalem is liberated and they are expelled from our land.”
Soliman also reportedly said that he had planned the attack for a year and planned it for after his daughter’s graduation. Federal officials sought to deport Soliman’s family; however, a judge blocked that effort.
“This is a proper end to an absurd legal effort on the plaintiff’s part. Just like her terrorist husband, she and her children are here illegally and are rightfully in ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody for removal as a result,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. “This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.”
In August, the ADL released a report ranking Colorado — which contains approximately 110,400 Jewish residents, accounting for 1.9 percent of the population — as eighth in the country for combating antisemitism.
“I am thrilled that the Anti-Defamation League has recognized Colorado as a national leader in fighting antisemitism, but there is much more to do,” the state’s governor Jared Polis said at the time. “Such hate and violence have no place in our Colorado for All, and that is why Colorado is leading the way to combat these trends and protect Coloradans’ right to worship how you want, making Colorado safer.”
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Lead Writer of Upcoming DC Comics Series Celebrated Oct. 7 Massacre in Resurfaced Social Media Posts
Gretchen Felker-Martin joins a virtual discussion from home. Photo: Screenshot
Gretchen Felker-Martin, an author and film critic who was recently announced as lead writer of the upcoming DC Comics series “Red Hood,” has an extensive history of endorsing terrorist acts and defending the murder of Jews and Israelis, according to a review of the writer’s social media posts.
In the posts — screenshots of which circulated on X/Twitter and other platforms this week — Felker-Martin appeared to praise Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US and expressed support for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
During the Oct. 7 onslaught, as Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages in the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, Felker-Martin argued that Israeli civilians are “settlers” and an “occupying force whose daily lives serve to grind out the hope, culture, and memory of those they oppress.” She also seemingly defended Hamas’s murdering of Israeli babies, saying that Israel is an “imperialist nightmare” and that Hamas is trying to “survive their rule by any means necessary.”
Hamas is designated by several countries as a terrorist organization.
“You cannot subject human beings to brutal conditions under which no hope for a meaningful future exists and then blame them for violent action taken to correct this state. Free Palestine,” she wrote on Oct. 7.
Later that month, Felker-Martin wrote that “Zionism is full-fledged Nazism and has accrued mainstream support throughout the west because of that, not in spite of it.”
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As the ensuing war in Gaza continued in the months ahead, Felker-Martin sharpened her criticisms of Israel, condemning Zionists as “crazy” and comparing them to “slime.” The writer also lambasted Neil Druckmann, the Israeli creator of the popular “The Last of Us” video game series, for being a “Zionist.” She encouraged fellow progressives not to support then-US Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, condemning Harris for not “moving an inch on the genocide.” She also falsely accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza and repudiated actress Hailee Steinfeld as a “Zionist piece of s**t.” Steinfeld has seemingly not made public statements about Israel but came under fire from leftists after she visited the Jewish state with family in 2019 for a party.
Felker-Martin separately defended Osama bin Laden’s role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, writing that “blowing up the World Trade Center is probably the most principled and defensible thing he ever did.”
Jewish organizations and antisemitism watchdog groups quickly condemned the remarks. StandWithUs, a nonpartisan pro-Israel organization, urged DC Comics to reconsider hiring Felker-Martin, citing her inflammatory and offensive commentary.