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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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Washington Warns UK, France Against Recognizing Palestinian Statehood

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
i24 News – The United States has warned the UK and France not to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference scheduled for June 17 in New York, the Middle East Eye reported Tuesday.
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host this conference on the two-state solution, with Paris reportedly preparing to unilaterally recognize Palestine. France is also pressuring London to follow this path, according to sources from the British Foreign Office.
French media reports indicate that French authorities believe they have the agreement of the British government. Meanwhile, Arab states are encouraging this move, measuring the success of the conference by the recognitions obtained.
This initiative deeply divides Western allies. If France and the UK were to carry out this recognition, they would become the first G7 nations to take this step, causing a “political earthquake” according to observers, given their historical ties with Israel. The Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer threatened last week to annex parts of the West Bank if this recognition took place, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
In the United Kingdom, Foreign Secretary David Lammy publicly opposes unilateral recognition, stating that London would only recognize a Palestinian state when we know that it is going to happen and that it is in view.
However, pressure is mounting within the Labour Party. MP Uma Kumaran, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the government was elected on a platform that promised to recognize Palestine as a step towards a just and lasting peace. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, believes that there is no legitimate reason for the United States to interfere in a sovereign decision of recognition, while highlighting the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump on this issue.
The post Washington Warns UK, France Against Recognizing Palestinian Statehood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Police, Shin Bet Thwart Suspected Iranian Attempt Perpetrate Terror Attack

A small number of Jewish worshipers pray during the priestly blessing, a traditional prayer which usually attracts thousands of worshipers at the Western Wall on the holiday of Passover during 2020, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 12, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Ronen Zvulun.
i24 News – The Shin Bet security agency and Israel Police thwarted another Iranian attempt to recruit Israelis, according to a statement on Tuesday, arresting a resident of East Jerusalem for allegedly carrying out missions for the Islamic Republic.
Iranian agents recruited the suspect, who in turn recruited members of his family. He is a resident of the Isawiya neighborhood in his 30s, and is accused of maintaining contact with a hostile foreign entity to harm the state by carrying out a terrorist attack against Jews.
The suspect had already begun perpetrating acts of sabotage and espionage, including collecting intelligence about areas in Jerusalem, including the Western Wall and Mahane Yehuda Market. He also hung signs, burned Israeli army uniforms, and more in exchange for payment totaling thousands of shekels.
He was also charged with planning a terror attack in central Israel, including setting fire to a forest, and was told to transfer weapons to terrorist elements in the West Bank.
The suspect’s sought the help of family members, including his mother. A search at his home revealed sums of cash, a spray can used in some of his activities, airsoft guns, suspected illegal drugs, and more.
His indictment is expected to be filed by the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office.
The statement said that the case is yet another example of Iranian efforts to recruit Israelis. “We will continue to coordinate efforts to thwart terrorism and terrorist elements, including those operating outside Israel, while attempting to mobilize local elements in order to protect the citizens of the State of Israel,” the Shin Bet and Police said.
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Pro-Russian, Anti-Israeli Hackers Pose Biggest Cybercrime Threats in Germany

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt holds a chart showing the development of antisemitic crime, during a press conference on Figures for Politically Motivated Crime in the Country, in Berlin, Germany, May 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Cybercrime in Germany rose to a record level last year, driven by hacker attacks from pro-Russian and anti-Israeli groups, the BKA Federal Crime Office reported on Tuesday as the government said it would boost countermeasures to combat it.
“Cybercrime is an increasing threat to our security,” said Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. “It is getting more aggressive but our counter-strategies are also becoming more professional,” he said.
Some 131,391 cases of cybercrime took place in Germany last year and a further 201,877 cases were committed from abroad or an unknown location, a BKA report said.
The actors behind the hacker attacks on German targets were primarily either pro-Russian or anti-Israeli, said the BKA, adding targets were mostly public and federal institutions.
Ransomware, when criminals copy and encrypt data, is one of the main threats, said the BKA, with 950 companies and institutes reporting cases in 2024.
German digital association Bitkom said damage caused by cyberattacks here totaled 178.6 billion euros ($203.87 billion) last year, some 30.4 billion euros more than in the previous year.
Dobrindt said the government planned to extend the legal capabilities authorities could use to combat cybercrime and set higher security standards for companies.
The post Pro-Russian, Anti-Israeli Hackers Pose Biggest Cybercrime Threats in Germany first appeared on Algemeiner.com.