“It is unconscionable that the Biden administration would abandon the successful pro-peace policy agenda of its predecessor,” said Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, CJV’s Israel Regional Vice President.

On Thursday, the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) condemned the decision of the Biden administration to renew funding to both the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

CJV is a US-based non-profit that advocates for classical Jewish ideas and standards in matters of American public policy. It is the largest rabbinic public-policy organization in the US, representing over 1,500 traditional Jewish leaders.

Neither the PA nor UNRWA has implemented any of the reforms demanded by humanitarian groups and the Taylor Force Act, which was signed into law in 2018, the group notes.

The Taylor Force Act, which received bipartisan support, was named for 28-year-old American tourist Taylor Force, who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv in March 2016.

In particular, the Palestinian Authority retains its infamous “Pay to Slay” program, which provides generous rewards to Palestinians – or their families – who murder innocent Israeli and American citizens.

UNRWA was forced to admit earlier this year that its “educational materials,” including math textbooks, encourage suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism. On multiple occasions during earlier conflicts, its schools were used as storage sites and launch facilities for missile attacks against Israeli civilians, incriminating UNRWA itself in war crimes.

“It is unconscionable that the Biden administration would abandon the successful pro-peace policy agenda of its predecessor,” said Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, CJV’s Israel Regional Vice President.

“The Biden administration has chosen to support organizations that continue to encourage and reward acts of terror and, thus, have not shown a hint of necessary reform,” said Pruzansky. “Three Israelis were murdered in 2020. Fortunately, that is the lowest number since the 1940s. But if that now rises, the current administration will be directly implicated.”

Source: https://unitedwithisrael.org/1500-rabbis-warn-biden-administration-is-funding-terrorism/

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Comments about Jews by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas triggered global condemnation – YURI KOCHETKOV (POOL/AFP/File)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday defiantly vowed to continue make welfare payments to convicted terrorists and their families, even if it costs his government its last penny.

“We will not accept a cut or cancellation of salaries to the families of martyrs and prisoners, as some are trying to bring about,” Abbas told representatives of a Palestinian prisoners advocacy group.

Israel’s parliament passed a law earlier this month that will slash tax transfers to the PA unless the policy, often referred to by critics as “pay for slay”, was stopped.

In March, the United States passed the Taylor Force Act, which has a similar intention, before quietly putting the entire US aid budget for the Palestinians on ice pending a review of the stipends, i24NEWS revealed.

Australia’s government also announced earlier this month that it was freezing direct aid to the PA in light of the payments, a move the Palestinians blasted as politically motivated.

Israel argues that payments to the families of Palestinians jailed for security offences or killed by Israeli forces while carrying out attacks encourage further violence, while the Palestinians defend them as a key source of income for families, who have in many cases lost their main source of income.

“Even if we have only a penny left, we will give it to the martyrs, the prisoners and their families,” Abbas said Monday.

“We view the prisoners and the martyrs as planets and stars in the skies of the Palestinian struggle, and they have priority in everything.”

Abbas’ defiance comes despite the suspension of US aid and Israeli tax deductions threatening the Palestinian economy as well as the provision of basic humanitarian services to Gazans living under a tight Israeli and Egyptian enforced land and naval blockade.

According to budget analysis by right-wing think tank the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the PA pays around $330 million a year to prisoners and their families, accounting for seven percent of its budget.

Palestinian officials say some 850,000 people have spent time in Israeli prisons in the 50 years since Israel seized the Palestinian territories in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Palestinian leaders see the funding cuts as a form of extortion by American and Israeli authorities intended to coerce them into welcoming the “deal of the century” touted by the Trump administration, which has yet to garner support from the Arab world ahead of its public presentation.

See also:

EXCLUSIVE: State Department criteria for Palestinian ‘pay-for-slay’ aid freeze

Taylor Force’s father says Israeli anti-‘pay for slay’ law a ‘good first step’

Source: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/middle-east/180122-180724-abbas-vows-to-continue-to-pay-terrorists-even-if-it-costs-pa-its-last-penny

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“Today, I announce that the Australian Government has discontinued funding to the World Bank’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund for the Palestinian Recovery and Development Program,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop wrote in a statement.

Bishop explained that she had contacted the PA in late May seeking assurances that Australian funding was not being misused.

“I am confident that previous Australian funding to the PA through the World Bank has been used as intended,” she affirmed, having had previously stated that the funds were subject to a close audit and had been spent on health, education and governance – aligning with Australia’s policies.

“However, I am concerned that in providing funds for this aspect of the PA’s operations there is an opportunity for it to use its own budget to activities that Australia would never support,” she added, referring to what she previously called the “so-called Martyrs fund.”

“Any assistance provided by the Palestine Liberation Organization to those convicted of politically motivated violence is an affront to Australian values, and undermines the prospect of meaningful peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” Bishop’s statement continued.

The payments to families of Palestinian attackers are an highly controversial issue often used to criticize the Palestinian Authority internationally, including by actors in the United States and the European Union. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has defended these payments as “social responsibility”.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas gestures as he chairs a Palestinian National Council meeting in Ramallah on April 30, 2018  – ABBAS MOMANI (AFP)

In 2017, the total budget for “prisoners’ payments” stood at $345 million, equivalent to half of the international contributions to the PA’s budget. The stipend is pegged to the length of the convicted terrorists’ prison sentences, meaning it is indirectly pegged to the severity of the crime.

The 10 million Australian dollars ($7.4 million) aid will now be redirected from to the UN Humanitarian Fund for the Palestinian Territories which supports 1.9 million “vulnerable Palestinians” with a focus on assisting access to basic services. According to the statement, this includes health care, food, water, improved sanitation and shelter.

According to the Guardian, Australia allocated $43 million for humanitarian assistance in the region which began on July 1.

On March 23 of this year, the Taylor Force Act was passed by the US Senate as part of an omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill, stating that it would withhold a large chunk of Washington’s financial aid to the PA unless they ceased the “pay-for-slay” policies. At the same time, it protected aid funding for wastewater projects.

On Sunday, i24NEWS learned that the US had quietly frozen its aid to the Palestinian Authority pending review. The funding freeze was said to have caused a suspension of certain programs run by international agencies, the HALO Trust, which performs landmine clearance in the West Bank said it had suspended operations due to the fund freeze. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) said that funds that should have been received had not arrived.

Last year, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott called on the government to slash the payment of “pensions to terrorists and their families” and also urged his country to follow in the footsteps of Trump’s embassy decision.

Abbott’s support for Israel which has lauded in the past as “the region’s only liberal, pluralist democracy” reflects a prevalent feeling amongst many Liberal Party members.

Australia generally, has been supportive of Israel in the international arena amid a slew of condemnation following the recent string of “Great March of Return” protests along the Gaza border that have turned violent.

Source: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/178508-180702-australia-ends-direct-aid-to-pa-amid-concerns-of-funds-funneled-to-terrorists

The post Australia ends direct aid to PA amid concerns over funds funneled to terrorists first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The United States has quietly frozen its aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) pending review,i24NEWS has learned. The move comes two months after Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which aimed to force the PA to terminate its “pay-for-slay” policies of paying stipends to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails and to the families of dead terrorists.

The act orders that US assistance to the West Bank and Gaza “that directly benefits the PA” be suspended unless the Secretary of State certifies that the Palestinian Authority has met four conditions: terminating these payments to terrorists, revoking laws authorizing this compensation, taking “credible steps” to end Palestinian terrorism, and “publicly condemning” and investigating such acts of violence.

The Taylor Force Act was passed as part of an omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill on 23 March 2018. It was named for the US army veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Jaffa in March 2016, in an attack that injured eleven people.

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee aide told i24NEWS, “Our understanding is that US funding to the West Bank and Gaza is on hold pending an administration review.”

Separately, i24NEWS understands that the West Bank and Gaza office of USAID — the American international development agency — has not received its budget for the upcoming fiscal year and therefore has not been able to put its projects out to tender.

The funding freeze has caused the suspension of certain programs run by international agencies. An official at the HALO Trust, which performs landmine clearance operations in the West Bank, told i24NEWS that it had suspended operations because the United States had stopped transferring funds at the end of May, leaving a major funding shortfall.

The withholding of USAID’s total budget as well as third-party projects means the administration is taking an expansive interpretation of what assistance “directly benefits” the PA, viewing humanitarian projects that would otherwise need to be paid for by the PA as constituting direct assistance to that organization.

A Palestinian official confirmed the report, saying the Trump administration had told the PA in mid-January 2018 that it was reexamining its Palestinian aid budget. He said the United States had informed the PA after the emergency Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Istanbul in mid-May, which convened in protest at the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the situation in Gaza, that the assistance had been put on hold and placed under review.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walks with US President Donald Trump in Washington on March 5, 2018 but now he returns home to what may be the most crucial stretch of his long career with corruption probes encircling him   MANDEL NGAN (AFP)

The United States was, till now, the world’s largest financial backer of the PA. Although it did not provide the PA direct budgetary assistance, unlike the European Union, it contributed massive funds for humanitarian projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as for UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency.

The total aid budget requested by the State Department for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 stood at $215 million annually for projects designed to boost the Palestinian economy, develop infrastructure, and boost institutional capacity among other goals.

The suspension of this aid means the Secretary of State has not certified that the Palestinian Authority has taken the steps the Taylor Force Act demanded. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has defended these payments as “social responsibility”.

The committee aide also confirmed that the State Department has submitted to Congress its criteria for determining assistance that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority, as the act required. The US State Department declined to share this unclassified report.

The PA has long had a policy of paying stipends to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails and to the families of dead militants. In 2017, the total budget for “prisoners’ payments” stood at $345 million, equivalent to half of the international contributions to the PA’s budget. The stipend is pegged to the length of the convicted terrorists’ prison sentences, meaning it is indirectly pegged to the severity of the crime.

The Trump administration slashed US payments to UNRWA in January 2018. UNRWA says $305 million have been withheld, plunging the agency into its “largest funding crisis ever” and forcing it to scramble for emergency contributions from other nations.

The funding cut comes at a time of an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between the United States and the PA, which is boycotting Trump administration officials and rejecting in advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan they intend to launch soon.

Eylon Levy is the i24NEWS investigative reporter. Twitter: @EylonALevy

Senior Middle East Correspondent Mohammed al-Kassim contributed to this report

Source: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/177909-180624-exclusive-us-freezes-palestinian-aid-budget

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