Legal group seeks internal documents related to US funding to Palestinians
Joe Biden and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2016 / AP
Adam Kredo • October 28, 2022 at 3:30 p.m
A legal advocacy group says the Biden administration is violating U.S. law by sending more than half a billion dollars to the Palestinian government and is demanding the administration release a series of internal documents the group believes will reveal an illegal effort “to undermined the Israelis. sovereignty over Jerusalem,” according to a copy of a Freedom of Information Act request provided to Free Washington Beacon.
America First Legal, a group of conservative lawyers and activists, hit the State Department this week with a FOIA request directing it to turn over a series of internal documents related to U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority, which was frozen under ex- President Donald Trump, but resumed. when President Joe Biden took office.
The legal group suspects that some of this taxpayer aid is being used to support Palestinian-led projects in Jerusalem that could undermine Israel’s control over its capital. The Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, but the Biden administration, while officially supporting the policy, has moved to open a Palestinian affairs unit in the city, fueling concerns that the consulate is working with the Palestinian government to erode Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem. .
The Biden administration’s funding could also violate a bipartisan U.S. law that prevents taxpayer funds from reaching the Palestinian government until it ends a terrorist payment program known as “pay-to-slay,” in which imprisoned militants and their families receive salaries. of Free lantern reported earlier this month on a non-public State Department report to Congress that determined the Palestinian government is still paying terrorists even as US aid dollars flow.
“Make no mistake – the goal here, contrary to US law, is to create facts on the ground to undermine Israel’s borders and sovereignty and to nullify the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” Reed D Rubinstein, American First Legal’s senior counsel and director of oversight, said in a statement. “The Biden administration is pouring hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars into “projects” that directly benefit both the corrupt Palestinian Authority and the terrorist dictatorship of Hamas.
The organization’s FOIA focuses on a State Department fact sheet from March that described projects run by the United States Palestinian Affairs Unit, which was launched to increase diplomacy with the Palestinian government. The State Department says this office is responsible for partnering “with Palestinian and American organizations to support projects in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. [Strip] that increase exchange between our two peoples and advance common goals in topics such as education, entrepreneurship, environmental protection, English language learning, science and technology, art and culture, gender equality, human rights and democracy, among others others.”
These programs also include “university liaison projects that link American and Palestinian universities directly for exchange and collaboration for students and faculty,” according to the State Department.
America First Legal wants to know the nature of these programs and whether they are benefiting groups that do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. The FOIA request directs the State Department to hand over “all records” identifying these “Palestinian and American organizations,” as well as the specific projects they are working on.
The State Department fact sheet also refers to “US facilities in Jerusalem Ramallah and Hebron” that serve as “sites and hubs for many of these” unnamed programs. America First Legal is seeking “all records identifying, about, relating to, or referencing any such ‘American Space,’ including the street address and budget of each.”
