How much for Hamas? Biden’s State Department ‘desperately trying to move’ funding to Palestinians

OPINION:

At this writing — and to his credit — President Biden has remained, at least publicly, largely steadfast behind Israel’s right to neutralize Hamas and see justice done for its Oct. 7 atrocities.

The president’s support for our ally defies pressure from the usual international suspects and the left wing of his party. Unfortunately, it also defies the calls for a cease-fire from within his own government. A few officials in the State Department and other agencies have resigned over the policy. At the same time, hundreds of federal workers — both career and appointees — have lent their support to anonymous letters condemning the Jewish state.

Historically, such vocal dissent from a long-standing and official policy is unprecedented. In the context of the administration’s pre-Oct. 7 foreign policy and personnel, however, it’s unsurprising. When Mr. Biden took office, the Trump administration had cut off most monetary aid to the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip, including to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNWRA.

The money stopped over the Palestinians’ refusal to participate in Mr. Trump’s peace process and because Congress had passed the 2018 Taylor Force Act, bipartisan legislation that bans giving U.S. funds to Palestinian authorities if they continue to pay the families of dead or imprisoned terrorists, known as “pay to slay.” Mr. Biden reopened the spigot without, it seems, discriminating where the money was going or being too careful about how the money was used.

The government watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust, or PPT, discovered from documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests that in March 2021, State Department officials acknowledged that the $360 million they wanted to send the Palestinians might be used to fund terror. But they sent it anyway.

“We assess there is a high-risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza,” read a draft of the request to the Treasury Department that the money be exempt from the Taylor Force Act. The Washington Free Beacon originally reported PPT’s discovery last August. After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the story exploded.

Further PPT scrutiny of the documents shows the laissez-faire attitude toward funding Palestinians was not uncommon in Mr. Biden’s State Department. In emails regarding a mandated report to Congress just days after the acknowledgment that Gaza aid would benefit Hamas, a State Department official states, “If the report looks good to you and you feel comfortable clearing, I’d be grateful. This report is a pre-obligation requirement for U.S. foreign assistance in the West Bank and Gaza, hence the push to get this out.” Another official stressed that “we’re desperately trying to move it today and want to prevent hold­ups.”

This rush to bypass the Taylor Force Act and shovel American tax dollars in a manner that could benefit Hamas might have raised eyebrows in March 2021. After Oct. 7, it’s appalling. With the $360 million the Free Beacon reported last year, we knew that due diligence had been done and was then promptly ignored. In this case, we don’t even know that much.

This enthusiasm for funding the Palestinians perhaps stemmed from an eagerness to contrast Mr. Biden’s approach and policies with Mr. Trump’s — whatever the consequences. Or it could have been out of simple naivete and misguided faith in the never-ending “peace process” — there’s no shortage of that among Mr. Biden’s diplomats.

For example, in 2018, when Mr. Trump ceased to fund UNRWA, commentary from the liberal Brookings Institution written by Middle East expert Hady Amr complained that the U.S. had “further written itself out of the process of peacemaking in the Middle East.” The defunding would have “dire immediate consequences” and “haunt the United States for years to come.”

Indeed, UNRWA is so in sync with our values that American citizens voluntarily give millions of dollars, collectively, to UNRWA each year via U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations — more than some whole countries.

That’s the same UNRWA to which the State Department recently halted funding until it makes “fundamental changes,” which hopefully include not employing at least a dozen people who joined Hamas’ Oct. 7 orgy of murder. And the same Hady Amr who praised UNRWA’s apple pie values has served in roles related to Palestinian affairs in Mr. Biden’s State Department since January 2021.

President Biden should look hard at who is advising him on and executing his foreign policy, especially where tax dollars are a policy tool. When we try to wriggle around the law to spread our largesse in the wrong places, our treasure too often turns to blood.

• Michael Chamberlain is director of Protect the Public’s Trust.