Anti-Israel Group Pays DOJ To Settle Claims It Stole COVID Relief Funding

Critics of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) piled on the group Wednesday after it agreed to pay a Department of Justice (DOJ) settlement over allegations that it fraudulently took COVID-19 relief funds.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit must now pay $677,634 to settle a DOJ lawsuit for hiding information on its political activities when applying for a federal loan, the DOJ said in a Tuesday press release. JVP applied for economic relief under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act despite that it is “primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities,” which made it ineligible, the release states.

“Jewish Voice for Peace contends that any misstatements in this application were inadvertent,” the DOJ said. JVP, which calls itself “the world’s largest Jewish organization standing in solidarity with Palestine,” did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Who would think that at Jewish Voice for Peace, a fraudulent front group for pro-Hamas Palestinians, would engage in fraud?” said Antonin Scalia Law School Professor David Bernstein, one of many criticsresponding to the news on X.

JVP rose to fame since the Israel-Hamas war started in October 2023 by participating in disruptiveprotests at college campuses across the country and locations in Washington, D.C. that have led to arrests. It often faces accusations of defending terrorism against Israel.

Columbia University suspended its chapters of JVP and Students for Justice in Palestine last year for staging a class “walkout,” allegedly in violation of campus policy. The groups sued, but the New York Supreme Court upheld the suspensions last November.

Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, called on the Biden administration to revoke JVP’s tax-exempt status in a September letter, citing “protests that have turned violent and support for illegal encampments on college campuses.”

The $677,634 settlement is twice the amount of pandemic relief funding JVP received through a forgiven loan, the DOJ said. The organization would have owed three times the loan if a court had found the organization liable for the alleged fraud in a trial.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Joe Gratz via Flickr)

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