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Is U.S. Aid to the Palestinian Authority Fueling Terror?

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch and Rikki Zagelbaum - On July 10, 2025, Shalev Zvuluny, 22, was murdered outside a Gush Etzion shopping center by Mahmoud Abed and Malek Salem, both members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) police. The U.S. continues to provide the PA with tens of millions of dollars a year, more than six years after the Taylor Force Act conditioned most U.S. aid to the PA. The State Department has set aside $46.5 million for civilian-security projects in the PA in fiscal 2025, up from last year's $40 million. The PA received nearly $1 billion from this program between 2007 and 2023. Most of this money covered routine operations and maintenance for Palestinian Authority security forces, with smaller amounts covering advisory services, light-armored vehicles, communications rentals, and equipment upgrades. The Taylor Force Act (2018) blocks only Economic Support Fund (ESF) assistance to the PA. Under the Act, ESF remains frozen until the PA abolishes its "Pay-for-Slay" policy, which provides salaries and stipends to terrorists and their families as a reward for killing Israelis and otherwise participating in terror, stops incitement to terror, and actively fights terror. Civilian-security aid, allocated under a different budgetary provision, was never affected. While U.S. officials continue to characterize the PA security forces as a "moderate, professional" partner, its personnel have repeatedly participated in or facilitated terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. According to senior PLO official Jibril Rajoub, PA security personnel account for 12% of all Palestinian terrorists held by Israel. Some 78 PA security personnel were recorded either executing, attempting, or directly enabling terrorist attacks between 2020 and 2024. The U.S. goal for this funding was to strengthen the PA security forces in the aftermath of the Hamas victory in the 2006 PA elections, and improve their effectiveness in fighting terror. In practice, however, the funding was used by the PA to train terrorists who are and were members of its security forces. At the very least, the U.S. administration should reevaluate its continued funding to the PA to ensure that it is not facilitating terror. Such funding should be conditioned on the PA desisting from terror incitement, terror promotion, and terror rewarding. The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center.
2025-07-15 00:00:00
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