President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were just hit with an amendment to a lawsuit accusing them of violating the Taylor Force Act, with the recent amendment alleging that the Biden Administration was knowingly supporting Palestinian terrorists using taxpayer dollars. America First Legal is behind the suit.
As background, the Taylor Force Act was passed in 2018. It came after West Point graduate Taylor Force was murdered in March of 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist in Jaffa, Israel. Following his murder, the Palestinian Authority’s ruling party, Fatah, called the murderer of Force a “heroic martyr.” In response, the act was passed to bar the executive branch from using taxpayer dollars to fund the Palestinian Authority and it so-called “Pay-to-Slay” program, which pays salaries to both terrorists in prison for killing people in Israel and to the families of killed terrorists. Under the Taylor Force Act, the executive branch cannot fund the Palestinian Authority until and unless it renounces and ends the program.
According to the amended lawsuit, however, the Biden Administration funded programs in Palestine that benefited the Palestinian Authority anyway. That funding, therefore, would have come in conflict with the Taylor Force Act, as the so-called “Pay to Slay” system remains in effect under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority.
America First Legal, describing the complaint, said, “The amended complaint alleges that the Biden Administration illegally reversed the Trump Administration’s ban on Palestinian funding, spending approximately $500 million U.S. tax dollars for ‘Economic Support Funds’ in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria (the ‘West Bank’), and another $1 billion for the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) to directly benefit the Palestinian Authority (PA).”
Continuing, America First Legal claims that the Biden Administration’s funding even benefitted both the “Pay to Slay” program and Hamas’ military capabilities. It said, “It further alleges that the Biden Administration knowingly subsidized the PA’s ‘pay-to-slay’ bounty system, the expansion of Hamas’s military capabilities in Gaza, and UNRWA’s material support for Palestinian terrorism.”
America First Legal then went on to allege that Biden and Blinken had “actual knowledge” of what the aid was being used for, saying, “The Defendants have had actual knowledge that American taxpayer-funded assistance to Gaza and the West Bank, including Economic Support Fund awards and United Nations Relief Works Agency contributions, including assistance funneled through nongovernmental organizations, was being diverted to or used for the benefit of Hamas and other terrorists.”
Continuing, America First Legal then said, “Responding to the Biden Administration’s October 18, 2023, announcement of $100 million in American taxpayer aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the USAID Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, issued a situational alert stating that ‘The USAID Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) has identified this area as high-risk for potential.’”
The lawsuit then explained, “the Biden administration knew that these so-called ‘reconstruction’ goods were routinely diverted to build Hamas’s tunnels and rockets. For example, on October 18, 2023, in the aftermath of 10/7, Biden perversely announced $100 million in ‘humanitarian aid’ for Gaza and the West Bank, the United States Agency for International Development Office of the Inspector General issued a ‘Fraud Awareness’ notification stating that there is a ‘high-risk for potential diversion and misuse of U.S.-funded assistance [that could] fall into the hands of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) including, but not limited to, Hamas.’”
Featured image credit: By U.S. Department of State from United States – Secretary Blinken performs during the Global Music Diplomacy Initiative Launch, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138271722
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