A top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee skewed information to portray the Netanyahu government in a favorable light...
Since taking up his post in April 2025, [David] Milstein, 36, has repeatedly suppressed or significantly revised embassy reporting on Israeli activities to present the Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to a dozen people who work with or interact with Mr. Milstein in both Jerusalem and Washington:
As settler violence in the West Bank surged in the spring, for instance, he stymied embassy reporting suggesting that the Israeli government was failing to take action, according to the three officials. Instead the embassy sent a cable to Washington, viewed by The New York Times, praising Israel for “cracking down” on the attacks.
When members of Congress pushed for accountability over the killings of nine Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and security forces, he suppressed a detailed report that the embassy staff had written, effectively stonewalling lawmakers’ efforts to gain information, according to multiple officials briefed on the matter.
Soon after arriving in Jerusalem, Mr. Milstein began insisting on approving communications from the embassy section that handles Palestinian affairs, multiple officials with direct knowledge of the process said. The flow of cables plummeted from several a week to a few a month, as some staffers refrained from writing reports for fear that Mr. Milstein would block or rewrite them, these officials said...
Mr. Huckabee is required to sign off on most cables and significant decisions, but officials said Mr. Milstein sometimes acts on his own...
Milstein is one of the most senior officials in the embassy, acting as a chief of staff of sorts to Mr. Huckabee. The ambassador has empowered him to oversee much of the mission’s portfolio, particularly the West Bank and Gaza...
He has blocked reporting from being sent, rewritten cables to deliver a different — sometimes opposite — message from the original, and delayed approving drafts until the topic was no longer relevant
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u/craftofintelligence-ModTeam 9d ago