It seems that President Trump’s new anti-terror legislation is starting to bite where biting is sorely required. According to a report on the BBC dated 1st February, the United States has cut off a large amount of security aid to the ‘Palestinians’.
A fear of being prosecuted in US courts by victims of terrorism seems to have been behind the ‘Palestinians’ themselves taking fright and refusing £46m that was going to go to ‘Palestinian’ security forces.
The BBC said:
The US has confirmed it stopped all aid to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in a step linked to new anti-terrorism legislation.
More than $60m (£46m) in annual funds for the Palestinian security services has now ended, and – while Israel has backed some previous cuts in US aid for Palestinians – officials have expressed concern about this move.
It is thought that co-operation with Israeli forces, which helps keep relative calm in the West Bank, could be affected.
The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA), passed by Congress and then signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, has just come into force.
This allows Americans to sue those receiving foreign aid from their country in US courts over alleged complicity in “acts of war”.
At a news conference on Thursday, senior official Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian Authority (PA) had sent a letter to the US state department asking them to end funding because of a fear of lawsuits.
“We do not want to receive any money if it will cause us to appear before the courts,” he said.
The PA denies Israeli accusations that it incites militant attacks.
“We are not seeking anything, the Americans have made their decision, but we will continue to participate in the fight against terrorism in the region,” Mr Erekat went on.
He pointed out that there were currently cases against three banks operating in the Palestinian territories before US courts, and that in the past, several attempts to allow US victims of Palestinian attacks to sue the PA and Palestine Liberation Organisation had failed because of a lack of jurisdiction.
This withdrawal of funds comes on top of the Trump administration’s cutting off of money to the UNRWA organisation, an organisation that many have claimed have been funding incitement of violence against Israelis. Of course it is a worry that this withdrawal of funds may make it more difficult for ‘Palestinian’ forces to control terrorists but many will wonder how effective they’ve been in that endeavour in the past? From what I can see neither the ‘Palestinian’ administrations in Gaza or those in Yehuda and Shomron (aka the West Bank) have been that effective in controlling terrorist groups or stopping Islamic terror atrocities.
The international community has since 1948 pumped billions of pounds into the coffers of ‘Palestinian’ organisations and there seems to have been very little positive to show for it. Those who were displaced by the 1948 war and during the subsequent attempts by Arab nations to wipe out Israel have not been resettled in the Arab nations that their families hailed from and it is apparent that few ‘Palestinian’ leaders truly desire peace with Israel. Even the drastic step of Israel pulling out of the Gaza strip did not bring peace, this action only brought more Islamic terror from the genocidal Hamas terror group.
Giving money to the ‘Palestinians’ is little better than flushing this money down the drain and it is gratifying to see that President Trump’s administration is finally starting to recognise this. Doling out vast sums of cash to the leadership of the ‘Palestinians’ has only really helped to sustain their enmity, maybe cutting off money will mean that either the ‘Palestinians’ continue to hate Israel but the West refuses to pay for this hatred or it brings the leaders of the ‘Palestinians’ to the negotiating table and creates a genuine and lasting peace in the Levant region.
