David Milstein, 36, has operated as the gatekeeper at the US Embassy in Jerusalem since April 2025. As principal aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee, he has blocked, delayed, or rewritten multiple diplomatic cables that contained information Israel preferred Washington not see.
The New York Times investigation, based on interviews with 15 current and former American officials and a review of dozens of internal documents, documented the pattern. Milstein’s interventions went further than any recent predecessor in shaping what reached senior policymakers.
In late March, Israel approved a major expansion of the unapproved by America settlements in the West Bank while the region was at war with Iran. Embassy staff prepared an urgent report warning that the move risked violating President Trump’s stated red line against annexation. Milstein blocked the cable. The version that eventually went forward framed the land seizures as a domestic Israeli matter addressing unspecified humanitarian needs.
Reporting on settler violence followed the same pattern. Embassy drafts that assessed Israel was failing to curb rising attacks were replaced by cables praising the Netanyahu government for “cracking down” on the violence. When Israeli military commanders warned that unchecked settler attacks could trigger a widespread Palestinian uprising, those assessments were suppressed.
Eight Palestinians and one Turk, all with US citizenship, were killed by Israeli settlers or security forces in the West Bank over four years. Embassy officers completed a March report concluding that Israeli investigations into most of the cases had made little progress. Some had been closed without charges. Milstein blocked the detailed inquiry. In its place, the embassy sent a message claiming Israel was handling the investigations properly. Thirty members of Congress had written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding accountability. That request was effectively thwarted by Hucakbee’s staffer.
Milstein also rewrote a cable concerning the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US-backed aid operation accused of killings at distribution sites. The original draft warned that the process was chaotic and deadly and risked further “mass-casualty events.” The revised version portrayed the foundation’s work as successful and omitted any mention of deaths.
The volume of reporting from the embassy’s Palestinian affairs section dropped sharply once Milstein required his approval on cables. Several officials told the Times that some White House and State Department personnel began bypassing normal embassy channels to obtain unfiltered information directly from staff on the ground.
Huckabee dismissed the entire account as “farcical” and “lacking in fact.” Milstein declined interview requests. The State Department said its personnel remain focused on advancing the administration’s foreign policy priorities.
Milstein is the stepson of radio host Mark Levin, a close ally of both Trump and Netanyahu. He has appeared publicly alongside Huckabee during early discussions on merging elements of the US and Israeli militaries.
Huckabee’s record includes a public friendship with Jonathan Pollard, the American who spied for Israel and was convicted of treason. The pattern of conduct at the embassy aligns with that association. The man holding the title of US ambassador has consistently acted to protect Israeli interests over the accurate transmission of facts to American leadership.
One Response
Masters of Deception. It’s what they do, just as they’ve always done.