West Bank government is still violating US law but will get a sanctions break anyway, according to congressional notice
Just before Tuesday’s presidential election, the Biden-Harris administration quietly waived mandatory terrorism sanctions on the embattled Palestinian government—even as it determined that the government’s leaders are paying imprisoned terrorists and fomenting violence in breach of U.S. law.
The State Department, in a non-public notice to Congress, determined that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) are not complying with agreements to curb terrorism against Israel and end the “pay-to-slay” program, which rewards imprisoned terrorists for committing acts of violence.
Those violations should trigger American sanctions, barring members of the Palestinian government from obtaining U.S. visas. The Biden-Harris administration nonetheless used its executive power to waive the sanctions.
“A blanket denial of visas to PLO members and PA officials, to include those whose travel to the United States to advance U.S. goals and objectives, is not consistent with the U.S. government’s expressed willingness to partner with the PLO and PA leadership,” the State Department told Congress in the private notification obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The agency issued the waiver just as Americans headed to the polls Tuesday to hand Donald Trump a decisive victory driven in part by the former president’s clear-cut commitment to Israel’s security amid a broadening regional war. The waiver enables the Palestinian government to duck American sanctions for another 180 days, at which point it will come up for renewal once Trump is in the White House.
Most notably, the State Department determined the Palestinian government “continued to make payments to the families of prisoners convicted of committing acts of terrorism and the families of individuals who were wounded or died while committing acts of terrorism, whom they dubbed ‘martyrs.’”
The terrorist payment program has long been a flashpoint in U.S. relations with the Palestinians. Congress passed a law in 2018 prohibiting economic aid unless those payments are ended, but the Biden-Harris administration has skirted the law while in office, enabling millions of dollars to flow into projects bolstering the Palestinian government. The administration simultaneously pumped millions of dollars into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip—even as officials privately warned of “a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza.”
During the reporting period, which covers April 1, 2023, to September 30, 2023, the Palestinian government “continued to utilize post office branches in the West Bank and Gaza to facilitate payments to prisoners and families of ‘martyrs,’” also in violation of Israeli laws.
“Senior PA/PLO officials publicly defended the payments and criticized Israel’s withholding of clearance and tax revenues, which Israel claimed were withheld in an amount equivalent to prisoner/’martyr’ payments made by the PA,” according to the State Department.
The Palestinian government prioritized payments to terrorists in the face of a massive budget shortfall driven by lagging investments from Western nations. The PA owes more than $6 billion for past loans, putting it in a “deep and substantial financial crisis,” but continues to pump millions into its “pay-to-slay” program.
An earlier State Department report showed the Palestinian government allocated more than $150 million to imprisoned terrorists in 2019, with another $191 million given to the families of terrorists who were “martyred” while attacking Israel.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was also found to have incited violence against Israel during the reporting period, violating U.S. agreements that should trigger sanctions.
Abbas, the State Department said, “stoked outrage after news broke that he had delivered a speech featuring antisemitic tropes in late August. The comments included claims that Ashkenazi Jews were not descended from ancient Israelites and that Hitler murdered Jews in the Holocaust because of their ‘role in society, which had to do with money.’”
Still, the Biden-Harris administration determined that Abbas remains committed to “nonviolence, a two-state solution, and previous PLO commitments, including recognition of the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace.”
Other Palestinian government officials “made statements that honored terrorists that killed Israelis and often remained silent following terrorist attacks inside Israel.” In other instances, they offered “praise and glorification” of Palestinian terrorists and named West Bank schools in honor of those who committed violence.
The Palestinian government’s two largest terror arms—the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)—also continued to launch attacks on Israel throughout the reporting period. The PFLP, for instance, orchestrated missile attacks from Lebanon and coordinated with Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. The DFLP also claimed “responsibility for some of the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.”
