Trump Ends Security Assistance To Palestinian Authority
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON/RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s move to freeze foreign aid has brought security assistance to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) to a halt amid concerns the United States had indirectly paid for terrorism, officials say.
A recent meeting of American and P.A. officials to evaluate Ramallah’s operation targeting Iranian-backed terrorists in the Samaria city of Jenin was postponed and has yet to be rescheduled, according to sources familiar with the situation.
“The Department and [United States Agency for International Development] USAID paused nearly all foreign assistance,” the U.S. State Department said in published remarks.
It noted waivers were issued for “critical programming that aligns with administration priorities in the region,” which apparently do not include the P.A., The Washington Post newspaper reported.
Anwar Rajab, spokesperson for the P.A. Security Forces (PASF), told The Washington Post that the United States had been a “big donor to the P.A. projects,” including “security and empowerment training” for Ramallah’s official police force.
However, there are concerns that at least part of the money received from the U.S. and other sources was used to pay families of Palestinians imprisoned or killed after carrying out attacks against Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree last week “to end” what critics call a “pay for slay” scheme.
Commentators say the system rewards “the families of terrorists” and has been a longstanding source of friction with the United States.
SLAIN ATTACKERS
Amid pressure, Abbas agreed to sign a decree stating that families of prisoners and slain attackers who require welfare assistance will be eligible for stipends “based solely on their financial needs,” as is the case with other Palestinians.
Yet Washington’s freeze has also led to cuts in some training, an anonymous P.A. official who directs training at the Central Training Institute in Jericho said.
Among other projects, Washington was reportedly funding “a virtual shooting range” as Israel does not allow the importation of bullets for live-fire training, a well-informed official said.
However, a former Israeli government official claimed that P.A. security forces were “not affected in any meaningful way” by the move and that “other donors have committed to making up the shortfall.”
Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, which Israel signed with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the 1990s, the newly created P.A. was tasked with “fighting terror in Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria,” also known as the West Bank, Israeli sources said.
Members of Israel’s security establishment reportedly prefer P.A. control over swaths of Judea and Samaria as a “moderating force” instead of “Hamas and other Iranian-backed terrorist groups.”
However, P.A. forces have a long history of carrying out attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians. In 2023, Ramallah’s leading Fatah faction boasted that most of its “martyrs” had served in the PASF, Israeli media recalled.
HAMAS RECRUITS
In addition, Hamas reportedly recruited dozens of P.A. operatives, deploying them as “terrorist combatants” and for intelligence gathering, Israeli sources said.
Israel’s Regavim Movement, which last year compiled a report detailing almost 80 P.A. police officers implicated in “acts of terrorism,” applauded the funding freeze.
The right-wing group said Washington’s decision means U.S. taxpayers’ funds are no longer transferred to “armed and dangerous terrorists of the Palestinian Authority—terrorists who have been trained, armed and supported by previous American administrations despite their active pursuit of the same intentions and goals as Hamas.”
The group urges the Israeli government to “see reality as clearly as the current U.S. administration does and to take the steps necessary to bring about the long-overdue change.”
Morton A. Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, also praised the administration’s move. “The Zionist Organization of America applauds President Trump for halting U.S. funding to the extremist terrorist Palestinian Authority’s security forces as part of his recent aid reductions,” he said in published remarks.
“President Trump is demonstrating true leadership by challenging the failed status quo and paving the way for a new future for both Israel and its Arab neighbors.”
Yet the move was expected to complicate Trump’s attempts to receive regional support for his plan to make Gaza, the other enclave, the “Riviera of the Middle East,” which would include sending Palestinians to nearby nations.
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