By: Adam Andrzejewski
The administration of President Joe Biden has sent more than $1 billion in aid to Palestinians, and proposes sending another $260 million in its FY2024 budget request yet to be approved by Congress, OpenTheBooks.com auditors found.
The U.S. government gave $318.4 million in 2021, $363.9 million in 2022, and $371 million in 2023, a reversal from former President Donald Trump’s August 2018 freeze.
While humanitarian funding is the finest tradition of American generosity, much of its use is now widely understood to have encouraged the culture of Jew hate promoted by Hamas, Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Palestinian Authority.
In 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged it’s possible the Palestinians could use U.S. aid to restock Hamas’ arsenal of hate.
“We’re going to be working in partnership with the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority to kind of channel aid there in a manner that does its best to go to the people of Gaza,” he said during a press briefing in May 2021. “I’m also sure that the government of Egypt will have some role in that. As we’ve seen in life, as we all know in life, there are no guarantees, but we’re going to do everything that we can to ensure that this assistance reaches the people who need it the most.”
Recently, after Hamas’ unexpected and bloody attack on Israel, Biden announced $100 million in humanitarian aid being sent to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as the Department of Treasury announced sanctions on the cryptocurrency exchange that aided Hamas, The Washington Post reported.
Biden also said an “unprecedented” aid package was being readied for Israel - $14.3 billion out of a $105 billion package that Congress must vote on to fund Israel, Ukraine, the southern border and more.
In January 2018, the U.S. released $65 million to the UN for Palestinians.
Then-President Trump, sitting next to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he was hopeful for peace in the Middle East and noted that Palestinian support from the U.S. should end.
“That money is on the table,” he said before cutting the aid to zero later that year. “That money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace. Because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace, and they’re going have to want peace, too, or we’re going to have nothing to do with them any longer.”
