On Election Day, Biden admin waived terrorism sanctions against PA

(JNS) — The State Department waived terrorism sanctions on the Palestinian Authority just before the American election on Nov. 5, even as it admitted that the P.A. continues to fund terrorism in violation of U.S. law.

The waiver enables the P.A. to skirt American sanctions for another 180 days, until it comes up for renewal under a Trump White House, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

The State Department, in a non-public notice to Congress, said that the P.A. and the PLO, the dominant force in the P.A., are not complying with agreements to rein in terrorism against Israel and end “pay-for-slay,” the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund program that provides lifetime monthly stipends to terrorists who attack Jews.

The P.A. “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 State Department said in its private notice.

Despite this, the State Department told Congress, “A blanket denial of visas to PLO members and P.A. officials … is not consistent with the U.S. government’s expressed willingness to partner with the PLO and P.A. leadership.”

The P.A. prioritizes terrorism payments despite owing more than $6 billion for past loans. In March, the White House claimed it was close to a deal with the P.A. to end its “pay-for-slay” program.

At a July 23, 2018, ceremony in Ramallah, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas said that “if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners.” 

In 2018, the U.S. Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which stopped American aid to the P.A. until it ended its stipends to terrorists. The Biden administration has flouted the law, restoring and even increasing funding to the P.A.

A bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers introduced a bill on July 25, the PLO and PA Terror Payments Accountability Act, to place new sanctions on those involved in the P.A.’s “pay-for-slay” system, saying the law was needed as the Taylor Force Act had failed to end aid to the P.A.

On Jan. 10, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, announced that the P.A. had added 3,550 terrorists to the list of those receiving monthly payouts since Hamas launched its war on Oct. 7, 2023. Of those, 661 were Hamas terrorists from Gaza.

“Those violations should trigger American sanctions, barring members of the Palestinian government from obtaining U.S. visas,” reported the Free Beacon.

In addition, Abbas incited violence against Israel during the reporting period (April 1-Sept. 30, 2023), also a violation that should trigger sanctions, the news site noted.

Abbas “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,’” the State Department said.

The Biden administration nonetheless claimed that Abbas is 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.”