The Palestinian Authority continues to pay stipends to families of “martyrs” and imprisoned terrorists and incites violence against Israel even as the Biden administration pours almost half a billion dollars of US taxpayer funds into its coffers, a non-public State Department report says, The Washington Free Beacon reported on Tuesday.

The PA had promised to halt these actions in order to receive US aid but instead “continued payments to Palestinian prisoners who had committed acts of terrorism, as well as the families of so-called ‘martyrs’ who died while committing acts of terrorism,” the report says. Additionally, official PA organizations and social media accounts “broadcast or published content praising or celebrating acts of violence.”

Biden’s renewal of aid to the PA was in violation of the 2018 Taylor Force Act, which banned the State Department from providing aid to the PA until it could ensure that “pay-to-slay” payments and incitement to violence ended.

“First, the administration tried to mislead Congress about Palestinian terrorists and payments to terrorists, which unfortunately worked long enough for them to move money to the Palestinian government,” a senior congressional official active in Middle East issues told the Beacon. “Now, they just don’t care.”

Jonathan Schanzer, a regional expert and senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Palestinian Authority and its splinter groups have become more polarized over time.

“Incitement continues unabated by the Palestinian Authority,” Schanzer told the Beacon. “In recent months, this has been accompanied by violent splinter factions of entities closely tied to the P.A. All of this could backfire rather badly on the P.A., which has not exactly been popular or stable. Washington has a duty to not only enforce its own policies. It has an obligation to preserve the system that it created, which now appears increasingly brittle.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)