If boycott activity is detected, the National Institutes of Health will demand its money back.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced Monday that it was modifying its terms and conditions for all its research grants to include a ban on participating in discriminatory boycotts, specifically mentioning Israel in this context.

From now on, the NIH said, by accepting a grant from the foremost public funder of medical and biological research in the world, the recipients “are certifying that they do not engage in and will not during the term of this award engage in a discriminatory prohibited boycott.”

If any institution is found to be operating any program that violates this condition, “NIH reserves the right to terminate financial assistance awards and recover all funds” that it had already contributed. The terms also apply to the renewal of existing grants.

The NIH has a budget of $47 billion to fund over 60,000 grants per year.

As reported by Forbes, the US business magazine, in February, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, nine of the top ten American recipients of NIH grants last year were universities, which account for almost all the agency’s funding, along with health institutions.

The list included Columbia University ($640 million), the University of Michigan (nearly $734 million) and Yale University ($645.8 million), which are all under federal investigation for the anti-Israel and antisemitic activity on their campuses ever since the Israel-Hamas war was sparked on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists massacred 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and injured thousands.

No top American university officially boycotts Israel, however, and campus protestors’ demands for the schools to divest from all Israeli-linked companies have been rejected by almost all the administrations’ boards.

The NIH notice seemingly took this into account, broadening its boycott ban to include “refusing to engage, severing commercial relations, or restricting commercial relationships specifically with Israeli companies or with companies conducting business in Israel or with Israel, or those authorized, licensed, or incorporated under Israeli law.”

Refusing to collaborate with Israeli universities, or employing professors and having professional associations that support BDS may also fall under the definition of exhibiting prohibited anti-Israel policies.

Harvard University, which has had billions of dollars in funding frozen by the Trump administration, including $488 million in NIH grants, over its failure to properly address campus antisemitism, has now filed a lawsuit against the government’s actions.

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Deprived of funding, UNRWA could collapse, which is the goal of the lawsuit, especially in light of UNRWA’s terror involvement.

By Amelie Botbol, JNS

More than 8,000 plaintiffs, including 1,500 dual American-Israeli citizens and 6,500 Israelis, have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia demanding permanent defunding of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Robert J. Tolchin in Brooklyn and Nitsana Darshan-Leitner in Tel Aviv.

“UNRWA is a disaster for both Israel and the Palestinians. In fact, the Palestinians deserve a lot better than UNRWA. They deserve an organization that will not designate them as refugees indefinitely,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder of Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center, an Israeli-based civil rights organization that has represented hundreds of terror victims in many lawsuits, told JNS.

“If UNRWA keeps teaching Palestinians that one day they will return to their homes in Tel Aviv, Acre and Haifa, and continue feeding the illusion of the right of return, Palestinians will never have a chance at a better life,” she added.

The U.S. is a major funder of UNRWA. In 2023 alone, U.S. support for UNRWA reached a record high of $422 million.

Deprived of it, UNRWA could collapse which is the goal of the lawsuit, especially in light of UNRWA’s terror involvement.

“Twelve UNRWA workers were directly involved in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200. They murdered Israelis. One was even filmed abducting the remains of Ayelet Samerano’s son, Jonathan,” Darshan-Leitner said.

“The IDF found rocket launchers, missiles and tunnels inside and underneath UNRWA’s facilities. They found Hamas’s servers inside UNRWA’s headquarters. This is evidence of the pivotal role that UNRWA plays in Hamas’s operations,” she added.

UNRWA’s involvement goes beyond the atrocities that took place in southwestern Israel on Oct. 7.

While 10% of UNRWA’s employees are confirmed Hamas terrorists, half of the workforce identifies with Hamas, with more than 6,000 Hamas members related to UNRWA workers.

“The writing was on the wall about UNRWA 50 years ago, when Congress prohibited U.S. funding unless UNRWA affirmatively prevented any of it from going to what was then referred to as ‘guerilla fighters,’” said attorney Tolchin, representing the plaintiffs.

“Unfortunately, for years U.S. administrations have looked the other way and funded it, even though it was widely known that UNRWA in Gaza had become infested by Hamas. It is time for the U.S. administration to take the blinders off,” he added.

“The blood of my sister and her husband and the fate of an entire family held hostage for more than four months is on the hands of the administration that pours millions of taxpayer dollars into the purse of Hamas,” said plaintiff Maurice Shnaider, whose sister Margit Silverman and her husband were murdered by Hamas in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 and whose niece, Shiri Bibas, his nephew-in-law, Yarden Bibas, and their two babies Kfir (9 months old at the time) and Ariel Bibas (4 years old) were abducted by Hamas in Gaza and are still unaccounted for.

“Why did they not stop this before? Why did they continue to pay them after it was revealed that a UNRWA teacher held hostages in his home? What else must happen for them to come to their senses? It’s enough,” he added.

According to Darshan-Leitner, the current funding suspension put in place after Israel submitted evidence of UNRWA’s terror involvement on Oct. 7 will likely end in a few weeks.

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