State Department officials privately took aim at a roughly $1 million grant to support investigations into alleged human rights abuses in Israel after the agency defended it, emails show.

The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor announced in February 2022 it would award cash to nonprofit organizations to “strengthen accountability and human rights in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza,” which prompted outcry among Republican lawmakers over an apparent targeting of the Jewish state. However, not all Biden administration diplomats were apparently on the same page when it came to whether the agency should have proceeded, and it’s unclear if it did, according to documents.