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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. 

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.”

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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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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