US Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) warned on Thursday that the Biden administration’s decision to award the Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in US aid violates the law and will directly benefit Hamas.
Speaking to the Washington Free Beacon following a trip to Israel this week, Hagerty said Israeli leaders he met with expressed concerns about the Biden administration’s Middle East policies, particularly its most recent effort to push through more than $100 million in aid to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Concerns about this aid money are mounting in Congress in the wake of the State Department’s admission that it cannot guarantee taxpayer dollars will be kept from enriching Hamas.
Hagerty, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spent several days in the Jewish state with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) meeting with top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, among others.
“Hamas is taking their toll, they’re involved in everything that moves in and out of the Gaza Strip,” Hagerty told the Free Beacon. “They will redirect [the aid money]. If you send in money and materials for reconstruction, the concrete that’s being utilized there in Gaza is actually being used to build tunnels for [Hamas], not rebuilding houses.”
He stated that there is no way the administration can “provide aid to them under current conditions and not have Hamas benefit from this. What’s more than likely to happen, whether it’s Hamas or the Islamic Jihad, they are going to benefit from the aid we are flowing into that area.”
Hagerty also said the State Department’s decision to immediately deliver aid to the PA violates the Taylor Force Act, which was passed in 2018 and prohibits American assistance from being delivered to the PA until it stops using this money to fund terrorists and their families.
Hagerty said the Israeli leaders he met with expressed concern over the Biden administration’s renewed diplomacy with Iran, which funds Hamas, saying it could lead to massive sanctions relief that will help Tehran fund future attacks on Israel. There are also fears the United States’ engagement with Iran will undermine the historic peace agreements reached last year between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
“Are the people in Israel concerned, the leadership, with our movement toward Iran? Absolutely. They were very clear to me that Iran is the existential question here,” Hagerty said. “At the root of all of this is the Biden administration’s stated movement back toward the flawed Iran deal that will put millions of dollars back in the hands of Iran and embolden our enemies.”
The PA had been boycotting the US since 2017, in protest of then-President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the relocation of the US embassy in Israel to the city.
However, since taking office, the Biden administration has renewed ties with the PA.
A recently released document reveals that the Biden administration is crafting a plan aimed at “resetting” US ties with the PA.
During his visit to Israel last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel to move forward with permitting large-scale aid to the Gaza Strip and other steps designed to “give hope” to Gazans. Blinken said these concerns trump Israel’s years-long effort to secure the release of several civilians and the remains of two IDF soldiers being held by Hamas in Gaza.
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That’s the name of the game with ol’ Joe and his cronies—keep the pot stirred both domestically and abroad. The more confusion, the harder it is to identify the problem which allows the Media to spin whatever angle they choose at any given time. Organized (somewhat) chaos.
” Biden administration’s decision to award the Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in US aid violates the law and will directly benefit Hamas.”
Keep in mind the Muslim Tinkerbell Barack Obama
is one of the demented puppet Betrayal Biden’s handlers.
Call it the usual redistribution of American taxpayer wealth where our tax dollars go to corrupt Middle East terrorists in fake aid their people never receive, with 10% kicked back to Biden and probably more to Obama while in office, which now require more to continue in the form of Hush money to keep it quiet. You now see how corrupt politicians like Obama go into office middle class, only owning a mansion financed by loans of favor seeking creeps who have to be pardoned right before leaving office, who when he left office was able to buy $12 million dollar estate with cash received in Biden style family kickbacks, stock tips, manipulations etc. where Obama probably got more than his 10% as President as I am sure Biden does now. Just follow the money, OUR MONEY. Only a criminal or terrorist of the American political class would finance such people, or pay off cyber crimes that shut down American pipelines or meat processing factories, unless a chunk of that money is redirected back to benefit the crooked politician that authorized it.
SO IF he says “THIS IS aiding hamas’, WHY IS HE NOT leading a charge, of TREASON to be lievvied against Joe, for KNOWINGLY AIDING A TERROR organization?
The corruption of all these politician Swamp creatures is simply astounding – this country/society/nearly Banana Republic is in dire need of a “Reset”.
Not just a reset, but a massive purge.
Good old Joe Biden and the liberals, enriching terrorists like Hamas so they can carry out terrorist attacks and enriching the drug cartels at our southern border. Hey Nancy Pelosi, why aren’t you impeaching Joe?
The Speaker of the house is 3rd in line to replace the President.
If and When Betrayal Biden is removed from office Nasty Nancy would become vice-president. …. OH NOOOO.
If you think that we are screwed now. Think the damage to our country,
If we have the Horrible Harris as president and Nasty Nancy Pelosi as vice-president.
BECAUSE she is firmly in favor, of what joe is doing! That’s why she won’t impeach him for ACTUAL CRIMES he does. Unlike the Faux crimes she impeached Trump for.
This administration seems to think the best policy for Israel is for it to give hope and aid to the very peoples and countries which seek the total destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews. It’s their religion!
YET all the jews here, majority SUPPORT what the commucrats in office, KEEP DOING to israel.
Talk about stabbing yourself in the back.