The Senate held a hearing on Wednesday to consider the Taylor Force Act, legislation that seeks to end the Palestinian Authority’s support of violence against Israeli citizens. The bill proposes to cut U.S. funding to the PA, which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars annually, until it stops paying families of Palestinians who commit terrorist attacks against Israelis and others.

Introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham in February, the bill would “condition assistance to the West Bank and Gaza on steps taken by the Palestinian Authority to end violence and terrorism against Israeli citizens.” Funding would resume if the PA takes “credible steps to end acts of violence against United States and Israeli citizens that are perpetrated by individuals under its jurisdictional control,” the bill says.

After Taylor Force hearing, @AIPAC not ready to endorse: “Discussions continue to find a bipartisan path forward.” https://t.co/wPQIOTTCtB

— Michael Wilner (@mawilner) July 12, 2017

The State Department provides about $400 million annually to the PA, led by Mahmoud Abbas, as the chief political body of the Palestinians. For years, Israel and the U.S. have criticized payments the PA provides to families of “martyrs,” or Palestinians who have killed Israelis and others in acts of terror. Stability in the West Bank is paramount to Israel’s security, however, so Israel has not conditioned its financial assistance on the PA’s practice of paying the families of jailed terrorists.

But Congress decided to act after the death of Taylor Force–for whom the act is named.

In March 2016, Taylor Force, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was visiting Tel Aviv with a delegation from Vanderbilt University Business School. The group had come to build connections with the Israeli tech sector. Force, 29 at the time, was stabbed to death by a 21-year-old Palestinian man while walking in Jaffa, the oldest section of Tel Aviv, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

We have an opportunity to send a message to the Palestinian Authority that ‘Pay to Slay’ must end.

WATCH: https://t.co/vvWU3phT2c

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 12, 2017

If the bill passes–it has not been considered by either chamber yet–the only funds the U.S. would provide to the PA would be for security assistance. Bipartisan support for the legislation has slowly been building since its introduction. The bill was introduced by a Republican and, early on, championed by Republicans. But a number of high-ranking Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have recently signaled they would support the bill.

Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), featured testimony from men with decades of experience in both Washington and Israel. Elliott Abrams, a diplomat in the Reagan and George W. Bush Administrations, said the PA’s payments to the families of imprisoned terrorists “reward and incentivize acts of terror.”

“There are cases of unemployed and desperate men who commit acts of terror in order to get these payments—which can amount to a permanent government salary,” he said. He added that “all the payments that give assistance to or directly benefit the PA itself should be stopped,” but the U.S. should continue funding NGOs and municipalities in the West Bank that do development work.

Dan Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador for Israel from 2011 to 2017, also provided testimony. He called the payments an “abominable practice” that “must stop,” adding “there should be no extra bonuses for someone who attacks Israelis. It incentivizes the killing of innocents, and it is just wrong.”

But Shapiro said that the Taylor Force Act, in its current form, would tackle the problem with a hammer, effectively choking aid to the PA entirely. He would prefer to use a scalpel.

“Stability in the West Bank, both economic and political, serves Israel’s security interests by dampening the atmosphere in which more Palestinians might be drawn to extremism,” he said. Shapiro said he supports the bill’s intentions, but would like to see it address the problem “without cutting off aid that goes directly to the Palestinian people, provides humanitarian relief, or bolsters stability and security.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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For a quarter century, the U.S. has exhaustively tried to broker the deal of all deals: an independent Palestinian state. And it has been seeking lasting peace in a region that has been rife with violence for a century. On Wednesday, during a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, President Donald Trump expressed confidence that he would achieve what none of his predecessors have been able to.

“We will get this done,” Trump said. Striking a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians has been one of Trump’s more consistent priorities. He has appointed a former Trump Organization lawyer, Jason Greenblatt, as the liaison for negotiations. Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew, has garnered wide praise for his willingness to listen to all of the involved parties–Israelis, Palestinians, and leaders from nearby Arab states like Jordan and Egypt.

Trump insisted he is “committed” to brokering an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that “allows both people to live, worship and thrive and prosper in peace.” During a February meeting at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump did not explicitly support a two-state solution–sovereign states for both Israel and Palestinians–instead saying he favors “the one that both parties like.”

Abbas, speaking in Arabic, said a Palestinian state is the only solution to the decades-old conflict, calling on the pre-1967 borders–the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem–as the template for a future state. Ceding East Jerusalem, home to Judaism’s holiest sites, to the Palestinians as their future capital has long been a contentious point for the Israelis. The last stab at peace, mediated by former Secretary of State John Kerry, folded in 2014 after the two sides could not agree to the specifics of a peace deal.

According to Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, in a private sit-down with Abbas after their public remarks, Trump told the Palestinian leader that a key to lasting peace is for the PA to stop sponsoring terrorism. According to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the PA, which receives foreign aid, including from the U.S., pays $315 million each year to the families of “martyrs,” or men who commit suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.

For Abbas, the “occupation of our people and of our land” must end before a peaceful solution can be reached. “After 50 years,” he said, referring to Israel’s capture of the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, “we are the only remaining people in the world that still live under occupation.” Abbas, like Trump, expressed confidence the quest for peace is not finished. Switching to English, he turned to Trump and said: “now, Mr. President, with you, we have hope.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, announced a new charter on Monday, aiming to bolster its appeal to the international community by adopting a slightly less militant stance against Israel. Many analysts see the document, a sort of sequel to its 1988 founding charter, as a way to stake its claim as a legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, and to recast its message in a more politically-oriented sheen in place of its traditional religious dogma.

Revealed in Doha, Qatar on Monday, two days before Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump in D.C., the document is the culmination of a decade-long attempt to retool the optics of a group that the West–and a number of Arab countries–considers a terrorist organization. Hamas’ new charter lightens the group’s tone on Israel, omitting calls for the Jewish State’s destruction–though it does call for an “armed struggle”–a stance it has espoused for decades. But it does reject “any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea,” adding:

However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

The document envisions a provisional Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, known as the “Green Line.” During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt, and the West Bank and east Jerusalem–home of Judaism’s holiest sites–from Jordan. Hamas 1988 charter essentially called for the destruction of Israel, and a return to the pre-1948–the year Israel achieved statehood–reality.

Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas assumed control of Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel recalled its settlements in the tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean coast. Since then, Israel and Hamas have fought three wars. The group has launched hundreds of attacks on Israeli civilians, shooting rockets indiscriminately across the border, and sending assailants through tunnels that snake under the border. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed. A few thousand Palestinians have died in the fighting.

The new charter comes at a precarious time for Gaza’s leadership–and its citizens. Last week, Mahmoud Abbas–the internationally-recognized leader of the Palestinian people, and a thorn in Hamas’ side–decided to stop funding Gaza’s flow of electricity from Israel. Supplied by Israel and paid for by the Palestinian Authority, Gaza has historically relied on these two neighbors for its energy. Gaza residents already face frequent blackouts and now with Abbas’s decision to withhold the PA’s funding, access to electricity will be severely limited.

Israel, which celebrated its 69th Independence Day on Monday, is taking the new charter as the same product with new branding. A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the document a “smokescreen,” adding: “We see Hamas continuing to invest all of its resources not just in preparing for war with Israel, but also in educating the children of Gaza to want to destroy Israel.”

A spokesman for Netanyahu, David Keyes, echoed that sentiment: “Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed,” Keyes said. “They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians,” he said. “This is the real Hamas.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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