The White House is quietly ramping up assistance to the Palestinians after former President Donald Trump cut off nearly all aid. Since taking office, the Biden Administration has allocated nearly $100 million for the Palestinians, only a small portion of which has been publicized.
After Washington announced last Thursday that it was giving $15 million to vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic, it notified the US Congress a day later – without making a public announcement – that it would be giving the Palestinians an additional $75 million in economic assistance.
The funding plan represents a major shift in the US approach to the Palestinians, coming on the heels of a Biden Administration report that refers to the West Bank as ‘occupied’ territory. On Wednesday, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price confirmed this change in policy: “In fact, the 2020 Human Rights Report does use the term ‘occupation’ in the context of the current status of the West Bank. This has been the longstanding position of previous administrations of both parties over the course of many decades.”
Within the 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published on Tuesday, the Biden Administration reintroduced the word ‘occupied’ to describe Israel’s seizure of territory during the 1967 Six-Day War. In contrast, the Trump administration believed that Israel had legal, historic and religious rights to portions of that territory and did not refer to it as ‘occupied.’
The Palestinian Authority targeted – and in some cases tortured – participants of the Trump-administration-led 2019 “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop in Bahrain, the United States charged in its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
“In 2019 there were reports Palestinian security forces arrested, intimidated and tortured Palestinians following their participation in an international conference in Bahrain…Some of these individuals, labeled ‘collaborators’ for working with, or engaging with, Israelis on political initiatives the PA did not support, reported direct and indirect threats of violence from Fatah, members of Fatah’s Tanzim, Hamas and other groups, some with possible ties to the PA,” the annual report stated.
While the PA had boycotted the conference, some individual Palestinians participated.
In a piece published in The Federalist, HonestReporting CEO Daniel Pomerantz weighed in on this disconcerting development:
The Palestinian government is boycotting the Bahrain conference, yet Palestinian businessman Mohammed Arif Masad will attend as a private individual. In reaction, his extended family disowned him, stating that he “deviated from the national line and the morals, values and traditions of his family,” and calling him a “collaborator with Israel.” A “collaborator with Israel” is considered in Palestinian society to be a terrible legal and moral crime, the punishment for which is often death by torture. Masad’s case is just one example that underscores how much courage ordinary Palestinians may be willing to muster in order to build a better future, even in the face of terrifying internal opposition.
The data were part of a wide-ranging report on Israeli, PA and Hamas activities in the West Bank and Gaza. It accused Palestinian Authority officials of “linking Israel and the spread of COVID-19 in the West Bank.” In addition, the report stated that the “PA Ministry of Education has named at least 31 schools after terrorists and an additional three schools after Nazi collaborators, while at least 41 school names honor ‘martyrs.'”
Kosovo’s new Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla said she considers the opening of the country’s embassy in Jerusalem to be a done deal. “Why is it a done deal? Because we cannot get involved in diplomatic adventures to reconsider an issue that already has ended,” Gervalla declared in an interview.
Responding to pressure that Turkish President Erdogan has put on Kosovo’s new government to relocate the embassy, Gervalla said the new administration in Pristina wants to strengthen ties with Israel but also wants to have “a good friendship, good ties with Palestinian authorities.”
Kosovo is the third country to have an embassy in Jerusalem, after the US and Guatemala. It is also the first Muslim-majority country with its primary mission in Israel’s capital city.
Kosovo and Israel officially established diplomatic relations in February. Kosovar Foreign Minister Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla submitted a formal request to open an embassy in Jerusalem during a ceremony held over video conference. The diplomatic mission was officially opened on March 14.
The move came after the US had negotiated an economic accord between Serbia and Kosovo last year. Israel agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Kosovo, and both Balkan countries committed to opening embassies in Jerusalem, though Serbia already has one in Tel Aviv.
ANTISEMITISM WATCH: A quarter of American Jews have personally experienced antisemitism in the past five years, a new survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League said. More than half of the American Jewish population has witnessed antisemitic comments, slurs, or threats targeting others.
A shocking 9 percent of respondents said they had been the victim of an antisemitic physical attack over the last five years. More than half (59 percent) of those polled said they feel Jews are less safe in the US today than they were a decade ago.
In total, 63 percent of the participants reported that they had witnessed or experienced antisemitism since 2016, an increase from 54 percent last year. The survey was taken in early January and includes responses from 503 Jewish-American adults. The margin of error is 4.4 percent.
HonestReporting has organized an exclusive trip to the Syrian border, where individuals can observe the prevailing security reality and have their pressing questions answered.
Itinerary:
- Travel to the Oz 77 memorial, which commemorates the Yom Kippur War and overlooks the Valley of Tears, where some of the fiercest battles took place;
- Visit the Monument to Eli Cohen, the notorious Israeli spy that infiltrated the highest echelons of power in Syria before getting caught and being executed. The site is located on an IDF special operations training facility in the Golan Heights;
- Tour the Israel-Syria border, where participants can view the town of Quneitra and a destroyed Syrian military building;
- Have free time at Ein Zivan, home of the De Karina Boutique Chocolate Factory and various other shops.
Recommended Content
- New Definitions of Antisemitism Are Dangerous (Mark Goldfeder, Israel Hayom)
- PA Financial Support for Terrorism Circumvents US and Israeli Law (Yoni Ben Menachem, Jewish News Syndicate)
- The Unexpected History Behind Jerusalem’s Street Names (Tess Levy, Israel21C)
- Former NBA Star Amar’e Stoudemire Talks Passover Prep, Daily Talmud Study in GQ Interview (Algemeiner)
