A New York Times investigation alleges that David Milstein, a senior aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee, suppressed, delayed or rewrote U.S. Embassy cables on West Bank settlements, settler violence and Gaza aid — including a report on nine American citizens killed since 2022. Huckabee calls the account “farcical.”
Published 17 October 2026 · 19:55 GMT
On October 17, 2026, Al Jazeera posed a blunt question: is the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem there for Israel, or for America? Al Jazeera (17 Oct 2026) The question was prompted by an investigation The New York Times published nine days earlier, alleging the embassy's own reporting to Washington has been systematically filtered by a political aide — and that among the buried material is a detailed review of nine American citizens killed in the occupied West Bank since 2022. Quds News Network (8 Oct 2026)
David Milstein, 36, is a senior adviser to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his de facto chief of staff at the Jerusalem embassy since April 2025. He is the stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin, an ally of both President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and holds a top-secret U.S. security clearance. His résumé runs through Republican Washington — aide to Senator Ted Cruz, special assistant to Ambassador David Friedman, outreach work for Governor Ron DeSantis. Huckabee gave him broad oversight of the embassy's West Bank and Gaza work, and, according to about a dozen people who deal with him in Jerusalem and Washington, he used it to suppress or doctor cables on illegal settlement expansion, settler attacks, the killings of Palestinian-American citizens and deadly aid distribution in Gaza.
The Times says it interviewed about 15 U.S. officials, plus nine former diplomats, and reviewed dozens of internal cables and memos. The sources, anonymous for fear of reprisals, said they spoke from concern that Washington was getting a distorted picture of Israeli actions.
The gravest allegation concerns the nine Americans. After 19-year-old Nasrallah Abu Siyam was shot dead by a settler in February while trying to stop the theft of his village's livestock — the ninth American in the string — 30 members of Congress led by Senator Chris Van Hollen wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding updates. Embassy officers completed a detailed report by March: according to the Times, it concluded Israeli investigations into most of the killings had made little progress, some cases had been closed, and no one had been charged. The Cradle (8 Oct 2026) Instead of forwarding it, Milstein allegedly pushed for a short letter to Van Hollen assuring lawmakers Israel was handling the cases properly. The State Department letter that reached Van Hollen on May 4 withheld the review's findings, citing the embassy's wartime focus on security cooperation with Israel. “If you don't get accountability, you endanger more American citizens,” Van Hollen said.
The nine dead, as documented in the congressional record and the reporting: Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist shot dead in Jenin in May 2022; Omar Assad; Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, 17; Mohamed Ahmad Alkhdour, 17; Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, shot by an Israeli soldier in September 2024; Amer Mohammad Saada Rabee, 14; Khamis Rabee Jabara; Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet, beaten to death by settlers in July 2025; and Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19. Eight were Palestinian-Americans, one Turkish-American — all U.S. citizens. St. Kitts Gazette (29 Sep 2026)
The Times describes the same pattern elsewhere. In late March, at the height of the war with Iran, Israel approved more West Bank settlements in a single decision than ever before; staff drafted an urgent memo warning it could flout Trump's explicit red line against annexation The Jerusalem Post (8 Oct 2026)— it never reached Washington. As settler violence surged in the spring, a draft concluding Israel was failing to act was replaced by a cable, seen by the Times, praising Israel for “cracking down.” In summer 2025, after dozens of Palestinians were killed near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, diplomats drafted a cable warning the process was chaotic and deadly and risked more “mass casualty events”; Milstein rewrote it to declare the foundation's operation a success. Soon after arriving, Milstein required his approval on the Palestinian-affairs section's communications, and cable output fell from several a week to a few a month — some staffers simply stopped writing. The violence itself continues: masked settlers keep attacking Palestinian harvesters across the West Bank, assaults that have also injured a U.S. journalist and drawn European protests after settlers beat a French mayor.
What remains unestablished is the decisive question: did the filtered reporting change any actual policy decision in Washington? The Times' officials warn distorted reporting could undermine decisions, but none has publicly tied a specific White House or State Department outcome to a suppressed cable. It is also unclear how much Ambassador Huckabee personally knew: officials told the Times that Milstein sometimes acted independently, sometimes worked with the ambassador, and was occasionally reined in by him — a ambiguity the embassy has not clarified. The full text of the suppressed March review has not surfaced, so its exact findings rest on officials' descriptions. And it is unknown whether Congress can compel its release, or whether any formal accountability — an inspector-general review, a hearing under oath — will follow Van Hollen's demands.
Diplomatic cables are the sensory nervous system of American foreign policy: how Washington learns what it cannot watch directly, informing decisions on military assistance, sanctions, humanitarian policy and security cooperation. If the embassy in one of America's most sensitive postings was, as alleged, editing reality before it reached policymakers — praising crackdowns staff said were not happening, burying findings that no one had been charged in the deaths of nine citizens — the distortion touches everything downstream, from congressional oversight to enforcement of U.S. law on assistance to foreign forces. The stakes are sharpened by context: an ally receiving billions in U.S. military support, a West Bank under annexation pressure, and a Congress actively asking questions that, per the Times, was stonewalled. Former ambassador Dan Kurtzer's principle: “The embassy ought to tell Washington everything — the good, the bad and the ugly. If they're not doing so, they are damaging the policy-making process and possibly undermining the president's policies.”
Through the Bureau's five dimensions, this is a story about who controls the American state's picture of reality. Geopolitically, it sits at the most inflammable junction in U.S. foreign policy: an embassy shaping Washington's posture toward Israel amid West Bank annexation pressure and war with Iran. Economically, the cables underwrite decisions on military assistance and sanctions — officials feared distorted reporting could affect enforcement of U.S. aid restrictions. Demographically, the victims are the human core: eight Palestinian-Americans and one Turkish-American, dual nationals whose U.S. citizenship did not buy U.S. protection. Historically, the allegations invert the embassy's role — the dissent channel exists so uncomfortable facts reach Washington, and officials said Milstein's interventions surpassed any recent predecessor's. Structurally, the mechanism is information control as power: Milstein reportedly asked colleagues whether they were “pro-Israel” or “pro-Hamas,” turning a loyalty test into an editorial filter, while White House and State officials twice bypassed normal channels to get unfiltered ground truth from staff. When the center cannot trust its own sensors, it routes around them — the clearest measure of how far the distortion allegedly went.
The second-order damage is already visible. Inside the State Department, the reported chilling effect — staffers declining to write cables they expect rewritten — degrades the institution's memory and future reporting capacity, a harm that outlasts any single aide. In Congress, the affair gives oversight hawks a concrete reason to doubt executive assurances on Israel, strengthening those who want conditions on assistance and fueling Van Hollen's hearing push. For the embassy's credibility with Palestinian-Americans and regional diplomats, the allegation that a report on dead citizens was buried to protect a host government is corrosive in a way no denial quickly repairs. And for the press, it is a stress test of anonymous-source investigation: the Times account rests on officials who would not go on the record — both why the story could be told and why the embassy can call it “farcical” without engaging a single specific claim.
Three tracks now matter. First, Congress: Van Hollen has requested a hearing and the release of the original March embassy report — whether the State Department complies, redacts, or refuses will determine whether this stays a press story or becomes an oversight fight; his earlier Foreign Assistance Act resolution was already blocked by the Senate. Second, the administration: the State Department has said only that its team remains focused on Trump's agenda, and neither Milstein nor Huckabee has addressed the specific incidents — a continued blanket denial keeps the story alive, while a document release could end it. Third, Gaza and the West Bank themselves: with Gaza's dead still being buried and annexation pressures unresolved, the next suppressed-or-sent cable is already being drafted. Watch whether embassy reporting volume recovers: several a week versus a few a month is the most honest indicator of whether anything has changed.
Western coverage has treated this as a Washington scandal about politicized diplomacy. The Times framed it as whether the president's own red lines were hidden from him; the Daily Caller and Military.com — outlets not hostile to the administration — corroborated the core facts and amplified Van Hollen's hearing push; the Jerusalem Post confirmed the report while probing its annexation angle. The embassy's camp has gone on offense: Huckabee called the account “farcical,” declined interviews, and his allies attacked the Times ' anonymous sources rather than rebutting specific incidents.
No East Asian outlet had published independent reporting on the Milstein allegations as of this writing. Searches of English-language coverage from The Hindu, CNA, NHK and Kyodo News, and a review of the day's CNA and Hindu digest items, surfaced no eastern-provenance account of the story — only the Western investigation and its Middle Eastern and American echo. The absence is recorded, not filled: the eastern perspective here is, for now, silence.
The Global South press has read the story through the families. Al Jazeera's framing — an embassy serving its host government better than its own citizens — echoes a long Palestinian-American grievance: dual nationals in the West Bank get consular sympathy, not protection. The Beirut-based Cradle made the March review's findings the moral center (investigations nowhere, no charges); the Palestinian Quds News Network treated the suppression as confirmation accountability would never come from inside the U.S. system.
David Milstein, 36, is a senior adviser to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his de facto chief of staff at the Jerusalem embassy since April 2025. The stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin, he holds a top-secret clearance. A New York Times investigation alleges he repeatedly suppressed, delayed or rewrote embassy cables on settlements, settler violence, Gaza aid and nine dead Americans to present Israel's government favorably.
Nine U.S. citizens killed in the occupied West Bank since 2022 by Israeli settlers or soldiers: journalist Shireen Abu Akleh (2022), Omar Assad, teenagers Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, Mohamed Ahmad Alkhdour and Amer Mohammad Saada Rabee, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi (2024), Khamis Rabee Jabara, Sayfollah Musallet — beaten by settlers in 2025 — and 19-year-old Nasrallah Abu Siyam, shot in February 2026. Eight were Palestinian-American; one was Turkish-American.
Huckabee has issued a blanket denial without addressing specific incidents, calling the Times account “farcical” and “lacking in fact” and stating he “personally and categorically” refutes its elements. Both he and Milstein declined the Times' interview requests. The State Department said its team remains focused on advancing President Trump's agenda. Officials told the Times Huckabee sometimes reined Milstein in — a claim the embassy has not elaborated.
Senator Chris Van Hollen has requested a hearing and the release of the embassy's original March report on the nine deaths, which the Times says found Israeli investigations stalled with no charges. The State Department has not committed to releasing it. Van Hollen's earlier attempt to force a formal report — a Foreign Assistance Act resolution — was blocked by the Senate, so a voluntary release or a subpoena fight are the remaining paths.
