Why Are Your Tax Dollars Funding the PLO?

For too long, the U.S. taxpayers have been forced to shell out money to the PLO—the Palestinian Liberation Organization. For nearly a quarter of a century, the PLO—repackaged as the Palestinian Authority—has been raking in billions of dollars from credulous officials in the U.S. State Department and the European Union. All the while, the PLO has never truly renounced its objective of destroying Israel.

Nor has the PLO ever been a friend to the American people. When the Twin Towers collapsed in flames on 9/11, the people living under the PLO danced in the streets, gave candy to their children, and fired their AK-47 Soviet-era rifles in the air to celebrate. The late PLO boss, Yassir Arafat gave orders for the murder of U.S. ambassador mto Sudan Cleo Noel in 1973. And he invented airline hijacking for terror purposes.

Yet, despite all that, top State Department officials have relentlessly pursued a “two-state solution” for Mideast peace, demanding that Israel make territorial concessions to people sworn to their destruction. Mahmoud Abbas is Arafat’s successor. He was a PLO henchman from the start. Yet, somehow, administrations of both parties have naively believed they could make peace between Arafat’s heirs and the Israelis.

Abbas was educated in the USSR. There, he got his Ph.D. at Moscow State University. His thesis topic was a denial of the Holocaust. Since assuming power over the PA, Abbas has refused to yield office or to hold the elections that were scheduled in 2009. It’s not a stretch to ask: By what authority is Mahmoud Abbas the head of the Palestinian Authority?

He is there because he has been propped up by our State Department and by the European Union. Both have paid him billions in the vain hope of an end to terrorism against Israel.

Now, Abbas is dropping the sheep’s clothing and revealing his sharp teeth. He has hooked up with his one-time bitter rivals in Hamas. Hamas ran Abbas’s Fatah organization out of the Gaza Strip. Abbas knows if he ever did hold an election, he and his PLO cronies would be voted out and Hamas would be voted in.

Hamas is recognized by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. Every thoughtful observer of the Mideast knows that Hamas is funded by the current regime in Iran.

The Obama administration is dragging its feet about cutting off Abbas and his new bedfellows, Hamas. The State Department’s spokeswoman, Bernadette Meehan, has said the administration “will not make decisions until we see the final formation of the interim government and have the opportunity to assess and make a determination about whether this is a government we can work with.”

Humma-humma. This is more Foggy Bottom gobbledygook! What Abbas has learned is that he can subcontract terrorism. He can get one of his subordinates in the vast maze of terror outfits he commands to do the actual killing while he poses as “Dr. Abbas,” the suit-and-tie diplomat.

World War II ended in unconditional surrender of our enemies. Congress declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941 and on Nazi Germany just days later (after Hitler declared war on us). The Second World War ended on September 2, 1945 on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The most terrible war in human history lasted, for America, just 1365 days, or 3 years, 8 months, and 26 days.

The difference between total victory in World War II and this seemingly endless war on terror is simple: In those days, we only funded one side. The time is past, long past, when we should stop giving money to stealth terrorists and false friends.

Tell your Members of Congress to cut off all U.S. funds to the PLO/PA/Arafat gang (check the box) now.

Ken Blackwell is Senior Fellow, Family Empowerment, and Robert Morrison is Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at Family Research Council. This article appeared in The American Thinker on June 6, 2014.