The United States is urging Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas to make changes in his government in preparation for controlling Gaza the “day after” the war between Israel and the enclave’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization.
That’s the word according to a report published Dec. 25 by the Washington Post.
Despite Israel’s steadfast opposition, the US is still hoping to pave the way for the PA to extend its control to Gaza by urging Abbas to establish a new government, while offering support for the training of the PA Security Forces, many of whom have in the past years have suddenly used their training to attack Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
White House officials have been pressuring Israel to transfer tax money intended for Palestinian Authority salaries in Gaza — that is, money that was being used to pay the salaries for the same Hamas terrorist organization that invaded dozens of southern Israeli communities on October 7th, torturing, raping, beheading, dismembering and burning alive entire families; slaughtering more than 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians. The same Hamas-led terrorists who abducted 250 other men and women, as well as babies, children, teens, disabled and elderly, dragging them into captivity in Gaza.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has, to his credit, categorically refused to transfer “even one shekel” to the Palestinian Authority for salary payments in Gaza — prompting the Ramallah government to whine that it has no money for salaries even in Ramallah.
But last Friday, the European Commission said it would save the day with a $130 million aid package to help plug the gap instead. Since more than a third of the PA’s total government budget is allocated for monthly support payments to incarcerated terrorists and the families of those who have died while attacking and attempting to murder Israelis, it is easy to see how the shortfall could easily be remedied — especially considering those payments to terrorists and their families violate US law.
The 2018 Taylor Force Act signed into law by then-President Donald Trump prohibits US taxpayer dollars from flowing to the Palestinian Authority while they pay for terrorist attacks against Americans and Israelis. The US legislature subsequently passed an update to the bill, the Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act in an effort to close the loopholes in the original bill that were exploited by the Biden Administration to continue funding the Palestinian Authority.
But money issues are simply a red herring tossed into the mix to avoid the necessity of having to renounce terrorism after having spent decades, generations, brainwashing the populace into believing that terrorism against Israel is a sacred mission.
US officials “have pushed for changes, and new faces in key positions, to improve the unpopular authority’s dire standing among Palestinians, with an eye on an expanded role in the Gaza Strip after the war,” Palestinian Authority and US officials told the news outlet.
“An Israeli commitment to a two-state solution … is only a precondition for progress. After Hamas, Gaza will need an administrator until elections can be held and to be a part of future talks with Israel. The best — really, the only — option is the Palestinian Authority, which runs parts of the West Bank,” the Washington Post opined in an editorial on Dec. 15.
Any move in that direction, however, places Washington on an eventual collision course with Israel, its “closest friend” in the Middle East.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said the Palestinian Authority cannot be allowed to govern Gaza, inasmuch as the Ramallah government itself seeks to eliminate the Jewish State, inciting its own citizens to murder Israelis and paying generous monthly salaries to those incarcerated by Israel for terrorist attacks, and to the families of those who die in the effort.
“The government has been clear: we will not tolerate the introduction of any entry of any element into the Gaza Strip that funds — as opposed to fighting — terrorism,” Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said Tuesday at a news briefing in response to the report.
Israel has seen the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh calling Hamas “an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic,” the spokesperson noted.
“That is not a signal from someone who is serious about fighting terrorism. That is a signal from an Authority that is making excuses for terrorism, covering up for terrorism, and giving it political cover,” he said.
“We think that whoever governs the Gaza Strip the “day after” Hamas must be committed to fighting terrorism, repudiating its violent ideology instead of giving it political cover,” he emphasized. “The Palestinian Authority at the moment is not a partner for that reconstruction effort.
“And it’s worth remembering that the last time Israel gave the Gaza Strip on a silver platter to the Palestinian Authority, it ended up getting toppled from power, and Hamas took over, and we will not be repeating the same mistakes again,” Levy added.
“We’re good students of history.”
