Omnibus US Spending Bill Cuts More US Aid to Palestinians
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
On Thursday, House and Senate members passed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill - avoiding a midnight Friday government shutdown.
The measure includes the so-called Taylor Force Act rider, cutting US funding to Palestinians by what’s paid by the PLO to families of individuals imprisoned for what Israel calls “terrorism” - what Palestinians call self-defense resistance against occupation ruthlessness.
Taylor Force was a US army veteran killed while visiting Israel - violence there spawned by Israeli state terror, wrongfully blamed on Palestinians.
Force was Vanderbilt University graduate student in neocon Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker’s home state, Tennessee.
He co-sponsored punitive anti-Palestinian legislation, saying “(w)hat has happened here will hopefully, when passed, prevent other people from having the same fate: an innocent person going about their activities in an innocent way” ending up killed.
Force’s parents live in neocon South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s home state, chairman of the Senate subcommittee overseeing foreign aid.
He disgracefully called PLO aid to families of Palestinians killed or otherwise victimized by Israeli state terror “pay to slay” payments - ignoring apartheid viciousness, murdering and brutalizing Palestinians unaccountably, virtually all other congressional members supporting what demands condemnation and firm action to stop.
The family of accused Force attacker receives PLO financial aid, uninvolved in his death. Taylor Force legislation is meant to cut it off.
Most US Palestinian funding goes for serving as Israel’s enforcer. Cutting any of it means Palestinians receiving aid will get less or nothing at all.
The vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians are political prisoners. US hardliners are colluding with Israel to combat justifiable resistance.
Graham disgracefully called Taylor Force legislation one of the most important bills he ever worked on.
Israeli occupation harshness bears full responsibility for his death, not Palestinians. Neocon hawks like Graham, Corker, and numerous bipartisan others have blood on their hands - endorsing endless US wars of aggression, partnering with Israeli ruthlessness against defenseless Palestinians.
Earlier, the Trump administration froze over half its funding to UNWRA, the UN organization providing humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees.
Cutting more US aid to the PLO will create greater hardships for Palestinians than already.
Ignored is daily Israeli state terror - aided and abetted by billions of dollars Washington provides the Jewish state annually.
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