Congressional leaders are moving to cut off all taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority if it continues monetarily rewarding terrorists for attacks on Israelis and Americans, top Republican lawmakers said Tuesday.
The effort comes after an attempted last-minute $221 million dollar transfer to the Palestinians by the Obama administration in defiance of congressional objections, which triggered anger and calls for retaliation from lawmakers. The Trump administration placed that payment under review.
“The Palestinian Authority receives economic assistance funds, well over $300 million dollars, from the United States taxpayer,” South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said Tuesday. “We’re going to get the Palestinian Authority’s attention by withholding their money.”
Graham is reintroducing the Taylor Force Act, named after an Army veteran who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv last March, which conditions U.S. aid to the PA on whether it keeps paying terrorists and their families.
Graham said during a conference introducing the bill that he expects it to gain bipartisan support, as well as that of President Trump, and pass both chambers of Congress.
“If it gets to the floor of the Senate, it will be overwhelmingly passed. It will be passed in the House by overwhelming numbers and signed by the president of the United States,” he said. “I’ve talked to Democrats about signing on. It’s only a matter of time.”
The pay-outs are cemented in Palestinian laws, which state that the PA will pay monthly allowance to “every prisoner, without discrimination,” according to an expert who spoke to Congress in July. The PA set aside roughly $140 million to support imprisoned terrorists and their families in 2016, and another $173 million for families of martyrs.
Missouri senator Roy Blunt, a cosponsor of the legislation, said the bill will push the PA to end the practice of rewarding terrorism.
“What the Taylor Force Act will do is give the Palestinian Authority a clear choice: You can either stop doing what you’re doing or you won’t have our money at least to do it with,” he said. “It is a fairly black and white moment, a fairly basic moment in human dignity.”
Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, an Iraq war veteran and cosponsor of the bill, gave an emotional appeal in support of the legislation.
“Taxpayer dollars are no longer going to subsidize the murder of American citizens or Israeli citizens,” he said. “We’re going to do everything in our power to make this bill into a law, and commemorate Taylor’s memory to ensure his sacrifice is not forgotten.”
Graham, Blunt, and Cotton stood alongside Force’s mother and father, as well as Colorado representative Doug Lamborn and New York representative Lee Zeldin, who are behind a companion House bill.
