Biden promised aid would not go to Hamas. The USAID policies to support that promise were a joke. ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, March 04, 2025

Biden promised aid would not go to Hamas. The USAID policies to support that promise were a joke.

Less than two weeks after October 7, President Biden visited Israel with a message of solidarity and support. One of his priorities, however, was to force Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

During his speech in Tel Aviv, he tried to reassure Israelis:

The people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter.

Today, I asked the Israeli cabinet — who I met with for some time this morning — to agree to the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. Based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas, Israel agreed that humanitarian assistance can begin to move from Egypt to Gaza.

Let me be clear: If Hamas diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people and it will end. As a practical matter, it will — it will stop the international community from being able to provide this aid.

Since then, we've seen that humanitarian aid has been the major source of income for Hamas, especially since Israel took over the Rafah crossing last year. This hasn't stopped the US from sending over $2.1 billion to Gaza.

How did this happen?

Last week, Gregg Roman of the Middle East Forum testified in Congress that much of the aid from the US bypassed standard USAID vetting due to emergency waivers. I have not been able to verify this.

Perhaps more importantly, he pointed out that even USAID vetting is close to useless:

The oversight is as weak as a house of cards in a windstorm—like handing out cash in a dark alley and hoping it doesn’t buy trouble. USAID’s vetting system is archaic, relying heavily on self-reported data with no real-time checks or teeth. Primary grantees are entrusted to vet their own subcontractors, even when those grantees themselves might sympathize with radical causes. In places like Gaza or Sudan, groups with blatant extremist affiliations slip through because the “gatekeepers” have no incentive—or even ideological desire—to shut them out. This isn’t a glitch; it’s a feature of a broken system.

Roman didn't make this up. Last July, USAID's own Inspector General looked at the aid going to Gaza and concluded that there was no serious oversight to stop it from going to Hamas.

USAID's oversight plan to Congress says that it relies on the organizations it funds to tell it when the aid is being misused:

To mitigate the risk that U.S. taxpayer dollars will be diverted to Hamas or other U.S.-designated terrorist entities, U.S. Government [USG] award recipients [implementing organizations] are required to promptly report any suspected incidents of diversion, fraud, waste, and abuse to USAID or State and their respective OIGs.

That's the "oversight" - handing out billions of dollars and then asking the recipients politely to let them know if it is being abused so they'll get less money.

The OIC report notes that it is even worse when USAID gives vast amounts of money to UN agencies, also with the instructions to report any abuses. The UN agencies almost never report anything suspicious. The report says, "reports to OIG of potential misconduct from UN agencies performing

USAID awards in Gaza remain sparse, underscoring shortcomings in USAID’s reliance on self reporting. "

Not only that, but while USAID relies on self-reporting to ensure that the key members of grantees are not associated with terrorists, it relies on those very organizations to identify who those key individuals are. So if they have a treasurer, say, who is linked to the PFLP, the organization just has to omit that person from their list of "key individuals." (USAID claims that they try to verify the information using open-source research.)

When it comes to the UN, however, USAID doesn't even ask that question.

Notably, USAID’s MO 21 exempts UN organizations from USAID’s partner vetting process. ...USAID asserts that vetting of awards to UN organizations is distinct from vetting of awards to other types of implementing organizations due to the UN agencies’ “international character, privileges & immunities, and the special nature of our relationship, including presence on certain UN agency boards to influence their policies and procedures.”

The report notes that some grantees had hidden their ties to terrorist organizations, like the American University of Beirut and Norwegian Peoples Aid (forced to return $700K and $2 million, respectively.) But this requirement of cosmetic vetting doesn't apply to contractors of the grantees, so in the end, there is next to no oversight of how these billions of dollars are spent.

In Gaza, the situation is arguably worse than in other areas USAID funds, because Hamas threats would ensure that these grantees would lie to USAID. They live in Gaza and know that Hamas would kill them if they don't do what it says.

The Biden Administration knew about this report showing that aid to Gaza was being sent without any real oversight on how it would not be diverted to Hamas. Yet it kept on sending hundreds of millions more to Gaza without USAID changing a single procedure.

When Israel says it will stop all aid to Gaza, it is doing what Biden promised to do, and never did.

(h/t WSJ for Biden quote.)