On Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) showed he was on the right side of history. He introduced an amendment that would have conditionally restricted the nation from giving foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a press release. Unfortunately, the Senate felt otherwise and voted down Paul’s proposal 44-50. It was an inexplicable rejection that reinforces wayward fiscal unaccountability with how the country provides foreign aid.
Consider the details of Paul’s amendment. In an era of political divisiveness and tribalism, objectively, there is very little reason, if any, to be against it. The nation’s history is rife with mistakes in distributing foreign aid. Paul’s efforts to prevent them in the future are commendable. And there is legitimately no reason not to want to ensure the government is doing the morally righteous and fiscally responsible thing when it comes to foreign aid.
As mentioned above, Paul’s amendment pertained to sending aid to the Palestinian Authority. It was conditional insofar as it would have required the president to verify specific requirements to Congress beforehand. Still, 50 senators voted against it. Here are some of the prerequisites Paul requested before sending millions in taxpayer money that 50 of the nation’s senators felt was unreasonable.
It would require the recipients of such aid to have to renounce terrorism and publicly recognize the state of Israel. Additionally, the recipients would have to formally acknowledge Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, according to Paul’s amendment. Other conditions included motions to enhance our country’s security as it required recipients to stop funding anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment” and remove any person with terrorist ties “from security services.” None of these were unreasonable.
Additionally, Paul’s amendment called for Hamas to release all hostages and a formal, public renouncement of Hamas and the Oct. 7 attacks. Again, this is nothing that should be considered controversial or against the nation’s interests. The stipulations mentioned above are arguably the least of what should be required before millions of dollars in taxpayer funds are sent to the Palestinian Authority. Even more infuriating is that 50 senators should have realized this, too. After all, it was easy for Sen. Paul to make such a distinction.
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The results of the vote should raise red flags. What are the real interests of the senators who voted against Paul’s bill? It would be hard to believe that they genuinely support what is in the best interest of the United States. Voting against Paul’s amendment supports such a hypothesis.
“If foreign aid is intended to project American power and values, the United States must insist that those recipients of foreign aid act in a manner consistent with internationally recognized human rights,” a press release from Paul read.
