Report: Obama sent $221 million to PA before leaving office
The Obama administration in its waning hours defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority, Washington officials said Monday.Obama Uses Last Hours As President To Funnel Money To Palestinian Authority, Which Incites Murdering Jews
The funds were being held up by Republican members of Congress.
An unnamed State Department official and several congressional aides said U.S. President Barack Obama's outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning, just before Donald Trump became president.
More than $227 million in foreign affairs funding were released at the time, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for U.N. organizations.
At least two GOP lawmakers had placed holds on the Palestinian funds. Congressional holds are generally respected by the executive branch but are not legally binding. (h/t Yenta Press)
Beyond the corruption of the PA, its involvement in inciting Palestinians to murder Jews has been widely documented, from publications as leftist as Newsweek to the Gatestone Institute to Christians United for Israel.Ex-Israeli Official Reveals Never Before Told Story Highlighting Fraught Obama-Netanyahu Relationship
In September, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Dan Coats of Indiana introduced the “Taylor Force Act,” named after the graduate of West Point who was stabbed to death on the Tel Aviv beach promenade by a Palestinian terrorist in March The bill would cut off US funding to the Palestinian Authority if it continued to pay monetary rewards to terrorists and their families.
Graham said bluntly:
We’ve got to go ahead and put sunlight on this problem. The PA incentivizes young Palestinians to commit acts of terror…I hope Congress will understand that this is inconsistent with the two-state solution and that we’ll build support [for the legislation] over time . . . there has to come a point of awakening here within Palestinian society. I want the Palestinians to make a decision as to what kind of people they are going to be. I know they’ve got problems, I’ve met [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas many times. I know Hamas is an out and out terrorist organization and the PA has a fairly good working relationship with the Israelis when it comes to security, but we’ve got to cross this bridge…American dollars are going to a government that literally rewards people for killing their neighbors. And until we get that addressed, I don’t think the peace process will ever move forward.
But Obama, ever desirous of mortally wounding the Jewish state, used his last hours to try to come closer to his goal one last time.
A former top Israeli diplomatic official revealed a never-before told story that shed further light on the fraught personal relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US President Barack Obama, in an interview published Friday.
Dore Gold — who was until recently the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry — told the Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon that after the September funeral of the late Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, someone from Air Force One — on which Obama, then-Secretary of State John Kerry and former President Bill Clinton were aboard — called Netanyahu’s chief of staff Yoav Horowitz and told him, “Tell your boss if he wants a funeral like Peres’, he should begin to move, to go forward,” the implication being that Netanyahu should be more flexible when it comes to the peace process with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu, according to Gold, told Horowitz to respond, “Tell him that I give up the honor because I have no intention of participating in the funeral of my country.”
Later in the Makor Rishon interview, Gold accused the Obama administration of having demonstrated a “kind of arrogance” when it came to its Middle East policies.
“They developed a vision, according to which no matter what the Arabs say or what the Israelis say, they know better the needs of both sides,” Gold said. (h/t Elder of Lobby)