President Biden Rewarding Palestinian Terrorists
© David Burton 2021
President Biden Rewarding Palestinian Terrorists© David Burton 2021 |
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| NOTE: Bold Text in quoted material reflects the emphasis of this writer, David Burton, and not that of the originator of the quoted material. “The Biden Administration is resuming financial aid to the Palestinian Authority despite the failure of government agencies to vet funding to ensure it complies with U.S. anti-terrorism laws, the Associated Press reported . . . “Since coming into office in January, the Biden Administration has allocated a total of $130 million in aid for the Palestinians – the first American aid since the Palestinians announced in December 2018 that they were turning down any American funding because they did not want to comply with the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act that was signed into law in 2018. “The newly allocated $40 million for Palestinian security services is in addition to $75 million . . . for infrastructure and other projects along with $15 million for ‘humanitarian’ purposes. “The new Biden Administration funding to the Palestinians is also problematic in light of a General Accounting Office (GAO) report released last week. It found that U.S. government agencies which distributed hundreds of millions of American tax dollars to the Palestinians had not properly vetted all the recipients to ensure they were in compliance with the U.S. anti-terrorism laws. - - - “However, the State Department has so far released no details of how the renewed funding to the Palestinians is being monitored. “The new aid is also questionable under other U.S. anti-terrorism laws that were approved when Biden was a senator . . . “ ‘While the Biden administration has not acknowledged it yet, congressionally imposed restrictions that President Biden himself helped author as a senator may complicate his administration’s efforts to restore diplomatic contacts,’ . . . 'the provision of financial aid may be even more complicated.’ “. . . the upcoming Palestinian elections place the issue of U.S. taxpayer aid to the Palestinians in doubt because Biden sponsored and pushed through the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 (PATA). That law, passed after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections, stipulates no U.S. funding if Hamas has anything to do with the Palestinian Authority. “Current indications are that the Palestinian elections could very well result in ‘a power-sharing agreement that brings Hamas or other terrorist entities into a government with Fatah’ . . . “The latest American funding appears to be in violation of other U.S. laws, including the Taylor Force Act that withholds tax money unless the Palestinian Authority ceases its policy of paying cash rewards to convicted terrorists, and the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA) that allows Americans to use the U.S. justice system to sue anybody who received American foreign aid and was involved in ‘acts of war’ including terrorism. “In December, 2018, the Palestinians announced they would stop accepting American aid because they feared they would be sued under the provisions of ATCA. “During the Trump Administration, both former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley worked to cut funding to the Palestinians, who lost $165 million in U.S. assistance because of their failure to stop their pay-for-slay policy. (Ref. 1) The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been meeting with American and Israeli government representatives to end-run both the American Taylor Force Act (anti-“pay for slay”) and the Israeli law prohibiting financial transfers to the Palestinians in the amount the PA remunerates terrorist “salaries.” Why is President Biden’s administration having this discussion? Generally, the Israeli government treats the PA like a slightly leprous cousin — odious, but better than the cousin with guinea worm disease. There is a fear that if the PA loses control of its own people, then Hamas — the “worse” Palestinians, with both links to Iran and serious weapons — will make its move from Gaza to the West Bank. This may not be an unreasonable fear, but it undermines the rules of money, morality and intelligence. While we talk about “dirty money” or “laundering money” to make it clean, we may tell ourselves that that the morality of the money is with the people who spend it. But,People who give money to those who do bad things with the money are certainly behaving immorally, if not illegally. When we talk about the act of cleaning “dirty money” or “laundering money” to make it clean, that doesn’t absolve the people who dispense the money of the crime of aiding and abetting in the immoral and/or illegal use of the funds. It’s a sort of “money laundering” in reverse. You can make clean money dirty. Good money becomes bad by virtue of how it is used and otherwise-good people become tainted by their willingness to help bad people do bad things. So it is with President Biden resuming the funding of the Palestinian Authority (PA), its military arm, Fatah, and the terrorist leader in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas. That unquestionably will be the effect of President Joe Biden’s intention to restore American funds to the PA. Biden may argue that American money will be used for schools, water projects, “civil society” programming and agriculture, but fungibility means that the PA won’t have to spend its money on those things, and will therefore have more money to pay terrorist salaries, indoctrinate “West Bank” children in terrorism and hatred of Israel, and reward the families of murderers of innocent Israelis. The Taylor Force Act passed by Congress and signed into law in 2018 stipulates that the U.S. must withhold money until the PA ceases paying stipends through the Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund to individuals who commit acts of terrorism and to the families of so-called “martyrs.” Israel has a parallel law. But never underestimate the creativity of bad people who want money. The authoritative Palestinian Media Watch continues to document the PA adding the names of thousands of terrorists that have been released from Israeli prisons to PA work rolls without requiring them to work. Those terrorists receive the payment as a reward for their acts of terror and pursuant to their incarceration. In playing this charade, the PA believes that it will provide a solution for at least two problems: (1) to both fool and placate the U.S. administration, and (2) to diminish the impact, at least partially, of the Israeli law that combats the PA payments to the terrorist prisoners and released prisoners. That might work for the terrorists if the “good” people choose to allow their “good” money to be manipulated in this way by the Palestinian Authority. While paying Palestinian terrorists still in prison is admittedly harder for the PA, they are nothing if not inventive when it comes to rewarding anyone who will murder a Jew. The PLO commissioner of prisoners’ affairs, Qadri Abu Bakr, told Palestinian outlet Sada that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh are making efforts to find a way to circumvent the Israeli anti-terrorism law. He stressed that the salaries will be paid in some way. Abbas himself told a different Palestinian outlet: “Since the Martyrs are the most sacred among us, since the wounded are the most sacred among us and since the prisoners are the most sacred among us, we cannot abandon them and their families. If we are left with only one penny, we will give it to their families.” Are you listening, Joe Biden? So Mr. President let’s see how the money you want to give the “Palestinians” will be used. Ehud Fogel, Ruth Fogel and three of their six children - Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and infant Hadas – are all dead. Three-month-old Hadas was decapitated. They were massacred at home on a Friday night after their Sabbath dinner. “Palestinian” cousins Amjad Mahmad Awad, then 18, and Hakim Mazen Awad, then 17, first denied the charges but then confessed in great detail. There was DNA evidence. The two “described what they did with self-control and did not express regret over their actions at any stage of the investigation.” Amjad told court reporters: “I don’t regret what I did, and I would do it again. I’m proud of what I did, and I’ll accept any punishment I get, even death, because I did it all for Palestine.” Because they have now spent 10 years in an Israeli prison, the Awad cousins are entitled to a 50% increase in their PA “pay-for-slay” stipend. According to Palestinian Media Watch, their current monthly “salary” of $1,203 will rise to $1,806. They have received more than $100,000 thus far—and they’re only still in their twenties. Where will that money come from? Possibly, from American taxpayers if President Biden is allowed to go forward and provide “clean” money that the PA will convert into “dirty” money. This amounts to American taxpayers laundering money for “Palestinian” terrorists. President Biden, are you that blind? And just how dirty will this money be? Very.[2] After all the progress made by Israel – and yes, even the Arab countries in the Middle East - under the Donald Trump presidency, it seems as if America is reversing course and once more allowing itself to come under the sway of the pro-Arab anti-Israel diplomats in our state department. Biden claims he’s a friend of Israel but it just doesn’t appear to be the case. It isn’t so. Let’s remember that President Biden was a senior partner in arguably the most hostile, anti-Israel administration in American history. It was Obama-Biden that rewarded the Palestinian Authority (PA) with taxpayer dollars despite it handing out millions of dollars to PA terrorists for killing Americans and Israelis. It was Obama-Biden that pressured Israel to withdraw to indefensible borders, release Palestinian terrorists from jail, divide Israel’s capital Jerusalem, refrain from building homes, and more. There was only deafening silence from Obama-Biden regarding the PA’s murderous track record and its refusal to recognize Israel as the one and only democratic Jewish nation in the world. On top of that, we had a president who kowtowed to any and all despotic and undemocratic Arab or Muslim rulers of the Middle East. It was Obama-Biden that got in bed with Iran, the world’s single largest state sponsor of terrorism. How Obama-Biden fathomed making a deal with an enemy that cried, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” defies credulity. Obama-Biden gave Iran a clear pathway to nuclear weapons and billions of dollars, $1.8 billion of which was sent in cold, hard U.S.-taxpayer cash in the dead of night. Biden has pledged to re-enter the Iran deal. Iran’s goal of annihilating the United States and Israel doesn’t seem to bother him. It didn’t bother Obama and his vacuous secretary of State, John Kerry, who has been been added to the Biden administration and now serves and advises President Biden as the United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Israel charged that it was the Obama-Biden administration that betrayed Israel in December 2016 by orchestrating the U.N. Resolution 2334 vote that falsely claimed Israel’s settlement activity in Eastern Jerusalem and the “Palestinian” territories was “illegal.” It is difficult for fair-minded people to deny President Obama’s anti-Israel animus. Some four months after defeating Donald Trump, President Biden has given no evidence that he is not going forward with the Obama-Biden anti-Israel agenda. Biden’s decision to funnel millions of American dollars into the pockets of terrorist Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen and to resume participation in the failed Iranian nuclear agreement speak volumes - none of which are favorable to Israel or to democratic peace-loving people anywhere in the world. Who, in his right mind, wants to see a nuclear armed Iran, led by a group of religious fanatic madmen? [3] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- References:
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| 15 April 2021 {Article 469; Islam_43} |