Samantha Power secretly colluded with Israel to enhance UN role, leaked emails show

By Wyatt Reed

Behind closed doors, the noted ‘humanitarian interventionist’ successfully lobbied for Israel’s inclusion on important UN committees even after the Human Rights Council accused it of targeting civilians in Gaza.

The leaked emails also reveal that Israel furnished Power with a dodgy dossier on Syrian chemical weapons as she pushed regime change in Damascus.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power secretly coordinated with a top Israeli diplomat to secure Israel’s access to multiple prestigious UN committees, leaked files show.

Several unsolicited emails sent by Power to the then ambassador of Israel to the UN, Ron Prosor, show the diplomat celebrating her role in polishing Israel’s image on the global stage.

The emails between the two diplomats reveal how the US-Israeli special relationship operates at a granular level, and help map out the personal interactions which ensure Israel enjoys constant diplomatic cover at an international level. They are among the latest batch of hacked files belonging to Israeli government officials which were leaked by the Handala hacking collective.

A November 2013 email exchange between Power and Prosor reveals how the US ambassador helped secure Israel entry to the UN’s Western European and Others Group (WEOG). Three days before the vote succeeded, Prosor predicted “a Hanukkah miracle,” telling Power, “I know what [a] crucial role you played in making this happen. This success will last way beyond our time and will always carry your figure [sic] print on it.”

Power replied by thanking him for sending “such a nice note,” and agreed that Israel’s ascension to WEOG was “so overdue and so ridiculous that it has taken this long.”

When Tel Aviv was accepted into WEOG days later, the pro-Israel Jewish Virtual Library hailed the vote as “an important move that allows Israel to join WEOG meetings in Geneva and exert some influence on the Human Rights Council.”

On October 29, 2015, two weeks after Prosor stepped down from his role as Israeli ambassador to the UN, Power boasted to her former colleague that she had gotten Israel onto another UN body — “our last plot,” as she described it.

“117-1 vote today for Israel to get into copuos!” Power wrote, referring to Tel Aviv’s entrance to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. She described the achievement as “HUGE!!” In the subject line, Power told Prosor she had led the push “in your honor.” A day later, Prosor emailed back, telling Power: “I am so happy that with your unwavering support we got it through the UN system.”

“Big hug from the holy land,” Prosor continued, telling Power: “You have to come and visit.” He urged Power to call him on his private cell phone, writing, “i have a nice academic venue that will trigger your visit.”

Power was evidently rewarded with an invitation to a lucrative speaking gig in Israel. The next February, she appeared in Tel Aviv as a featured speaker at the national model UN conference, where she promptly blasted the UN for its supposed anti-Israel bias. “Bias has extended well beyond Israel as a country, Israel as an idea,” she claimed, complaining, “Israel is just not treated like other countries.”

Israel tailored a Syrian chemical weapons dossier for Power’s “non-technical brain”

Power used her platform at the UN to thunder for military intervention in Syria, frequently exploiting the US-backed opposition’s questionable claims of chemical attacks to make her case. And from almost the moment she entered her position, Israel was feeding her cooked intelligence apparently alleging that Syria held a vast arsenal of WMD’s.

An email chain beginning on Sept. 12, 2013 – just one month into Power’s UN tenure – suggests Prosor instrumentalized his American counterpart as a conduit for Israel’s dubious intelligence on Syrian chemical weapons. “I wanted to let you know that today we have transferred… technical information” to the US side, he wrote to Power, adding, “I know it is of significant value in dealing with the Syrian chemical arsenal.”

Prosor noted that he also distributed the report to Thomas Countryman, then the State Department’s top official in charge of non-proliferation.

Two days prior, Power appeared to thank Prosor for presenting her with a dumbed-down intelligence dossier. “For my non-technical brain, this is extremely helpful,” she wrote. “I know that these options are being worked aggressively,” she continued, hinting at potential sanctions and military tactics being pursued by the Obama administration.

A momentary rift over the Iran deal

One missive from Prosor to Power hints at the extent to which Israel came to rely on US backing at the UN. On February 13, 2014 — one day before Israel’s ever-expanding settlements were heavily criticized during a closed-door briefing by UN Security Council members, — a seemingly perturbed Prosor reached out to Washington’s representative in New York.

“Hi Samantha, I have been trying to reach you for a couple of days now. I would really appreciate if you can call me back as soon as you can.” It’s unclear whether Power responded to the email.

The email, which coincided with a lull in communication between the pair, suggests ties may have frayed slightly amid efforts by the Obama administration to achieve a nuclear deal with Iran — a prospect which Tel Aviv loudly and publicly opposed well before the terms of the bargain had even been decided upon.

Another email sent during Israel’s July 2014 Gaza invasion shows Prosor sent Power a report disparaging her boss, then Secretary of State John Kerry. That article was an analysis published by Israel’s liberal Haaretz daily which was headlined, “Reckless Kerry Risks Causing Escalation.” It blamed Kerry for having “forced [Israel] to undertake an expanded ground operation” in Gaza. Prosor declared the essay “worth reading,” telling Power it was written by an author “who is branded as ‘leftist’ in Israel, the kind you like.”

But the next year, with that war over, and negotiations with Tehran wrapping up in June, Power was back to business as usual with the Israelis.

Whitewashing Israel’s atrocities against civilians, including children

One email forwarded by Power to Prosor on June 8, 2015, which was clearly intended to convey reassurance to Israeli diplomats, was originally written by a State Department official. Describing an upcoming UN report on Children and Armed Conflict, the US functionary confirmed that the Israeli military had not “been listed in the annex of the report” despite its well-documented abuses and rampant killings of minors in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

One week later, career US ambassador Michele Sison issued a personal invitation to Prosor: “We are having a special event next Tuesday — the kind of event that is unique to New York — and Ambassador Power and I hope you can join us.” The American diplomats requested Prosor take part in a panel discussion there, with Sison insisting, “Ambassador Power… and I would be honored if you could participate.”

Elsewhere, Prosor urges Power to personally lobby the head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in order to secure a coveted position for an Israeli, who he claims was “only [kept] from getting the job” due to his “nationality.”

“I know you are sensitive to the discrimination at large towards Israel and specifically at this organization thus I ask you to personally speak with UNFPA Executive Director, Babatunde, and convey US support,” Prosor explains. “Dr. Babatubde [sic] knows [the candidate] and his work personally but needs support to reach the right decision,” he continues.

Power’s complicity in Gaza genocide spurs staff revolt

After working for much of the ’90s as a Soros-funded journalist in post-Soviet states, Power shot to fame upon publishing a book called “America and the Age of Genocide,” which hammered State Department leadership in the Bill Clinton administration for not taking more forceful action to intervene in the Rwandan civil conflict. During Obama’s second term, she enlisted Rabbi Shmuley Boteach as her personal liaison to the Zionist lobby, whose support she required to to secure the position of UN Ambassador, as documented in a Foreign Policy article headlined “How Michael Jackson’s Rabbi Made Samantha Power Kosher.”

Most recently, Power served as the director of USAID under President Joe Biden. As Israel’s genocide in Gaza unfolded, she faced a growing wave of dissension from staffers in the organization. During a stormy meeting in February 2024, current and former USAID staffers confronted Power over her support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, and refusal to push for a ceasefire. Several staffers expressed outrage that Power had apparently covered up Israel’s killing of a USAID staffer inside Gaza in November 2023, according to the Washington Post. She pushed back by deploying debunked Israeli propaganda accusing Hamas of “sexual assault” on October 7.

Since leaving her office at the helm of USAID, Power has attempted to distance herself from Israel’s ongoing war crimes, and has criticized Israel for failing to provide sufficient aid to Palestinians. In January of 2025, Power offered up her best Oscar Schindler impersonation and complained, “I wish we could have ended the war in Gaza far sooner… and done more to end this hell that the people of Gaza have experienced.”

But the emails show that, even after the UN Human Rights Council publicly accused Israel of deliberately targeting children when it killed over 2,000 Palestinians during its last attack on Gaza in 2014, Power played a secret but seminal role in furthering Israel’s influence on the world stage while shielding it from accountability for its documented atrocities.

A 2015 message shows that Power organized a going-away party for Israel’s ambassador prior to his retirement. An email from David Harris, the longtime leader of the American Jewish Committee, referred explicitly to a “luncheon hosted by Amb. Samantha Power in [his] honor.”