The Taylor Force Act, named for Taylor Force, the West Point graduate, and U.S. army veteran who was murdered in March 2016 in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian terrorist, will end U.S. funding to the tune of half a billion dollars a year to the Palestinian Authority — until it ends its payments to terrorists and their families – including the family of Force’s murderer Bashar Masalha.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was one of the first foreign leaders graciously welcomed to the White House by President Trump. Yet Abbas has refused to meet David Friedman, America’s Ambassador to Israel to discuss Trump’s peace proposal and rudely dismissed and dispatched back to Washington Jared Kushner, Trump’s Mideast point man and Jason Greenblatt, America’s Mideast envoy, after they asked him to stop making payments to convicted murderers, terrorists and their families.
America and Israel have called the PA payments immoral and an impediment to peace, while the PA says the policy has been in place for years, is part of the Palestinian government’s “social responsibility” and mostly benefits the families of legitimate combatants. In other words, Hamas terrorists are deemed “legitimate combatants.”
President Trump is right when he said during his visit to Bethlehem that peace “can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded, or rewarded.”
To make matters worse, Abbas has taken the unilateral step, without consulting Israel, Egypt and Jordan of halting all payments to Gaza and Hamas, creating a humanitarian disaster there by forcing Gaza’s two million residents to live on four hours of electricity a day in the hope of weakening Hamas, so he can regain control of the Strip a decade after Hamas ousted the PA in a bloody coup.
Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman believes Abbas has a double strategy. To cripple Hamas but also hopes “he will drag Hamas into a conflict with Israel.”
Iran is constantly accused by Washington politicians of funding terrorism, including Hamas. Yet Iran only gives Hamas $50 million a year compared to America’s half a billion. So, really, honestly, who is funding Hamas terrorism?
The Taylor Force Act, authored by Senator Lindsey Graham, deserves bipartisan support in both the House and Senate and should be enacted into law as soon as possible for there to be any realistic chance to end Palestinian terrorism, peace and make the “ultimate deal” – the establishment of a Palestinian state.