| Washington has provided
annual aid to the Palestinian Authority since the Oslo Accords were signed
in September 1993.
Much of it goes for funding Palestinian security forces, serving as
Israel’s enforcer.
On Thursday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee members
overwhelmingly voted 17 4 to cut off aid to the PA unless it stops
providing financial assistance to families of Palestinians killed by
Israel through what’s called a Palestinian Authority Martyr’s
Fund. Families of Palestinian political prisoners are also aided.
Israel and Washington consider Palestinian victims of Israeli
violence “terrorists.” The so-called Taylor Force Act is named after
the former US army veteran, killed while visiting Israel violence
there spawned by Israeli state terror, wrongfully blamed on
Palestinians.
The family of accused Force attacker, killed by Israeli security
forces, receives PA financial aid. Force was Vanderbilt University
graduate student in neocon Senate Foreign Relations Committee
chairman Bob Corker’s home state, Tennessee.
He co-sponsored punitive anti-Palestinian legislation, saying
“(w)hat has happened here will hopefully, when passed, prevent other
people from having the same fate: an innocent person going about
their activities in an innocent way, being murdered by someone who’s
being incented to do that by their own government” a disgraceful
statement.
Force’s parents live in neocon South Carolina Senator Lindsey
Graham’s home state, chairman of the Senate subcommittee overseeing
foreign aid.
He disgracefully called PA aid to families of Palestinians killed by
Israel “pay to slay” payments ignoring its apartheid viciousness,
murdering and brutalizing Palestinians unaccountably, virtually all
other congressional members supporting what demands condemnation and
firm action to stop.
Corker expects House and Senate passage of the legislation, perhaps
in the fall. Cutting off aid will create enormous hardships,
increasing Palestinian suffering under a ruthless occupier.
Separately, bipartisan Senate Foreign Relations Committee members
urged neocon US UN envoy Nikki Haley to lead an international
effort, pressuring other countries to cut off PA aid.
Its officials said they’ll continue aiding families of Palestinians
imprisoned or killed by Israel for wanting to live free from
oppressive occupation.
Israel considers legitimate resistance “terrorism.” Its own extreme
harshness is called “self-defense.”
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