Why Israel supporters must pressure President Biden to stop anti-Israel measures

Dear Friend of FLAME:

Millions of Americans who voted for President Joe Biden were satisfied with his regular verbal commitments to Israel and the continued American partnership with the Jewish state. While few would have expected President Biden to continue President Donald Trump’s aggressively supportive relationship with Israel, the current administration’s about-face should make any Israel-supporter shudder.

As a non-partisan organization, FLAME has until now given Mr. Biden the benefit of the doubt, expecting him to reject the radical, anti-Israel proposals of his party’s left wing and do the right things for the Jewish state. That’s why it’s sad to witness how the Biden Administration has rushed to take provocative steps that hurt Israel and bolster an unrepentant Palestinian leadership.

First, there are the plans to provide $235 million in aid to Palestinians, restoring part of the assistance cut by Donald Trump. Two-thirds of the amount will go to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, an opaque organization that has been embroiled in corruption, anti-Israel bias and even sheltering terrorists.

UNRWA is one of the prime obstacles to ending the conflict because it profits from its own perpetuation. Unlike other UN refugee agencies, UNRWA has not found a durable solution for even one refugee in almost eight decades.

UNWRA uniquely allows some five million Palestinians—almost all of them second-, third- and fourth-generation descendants of refugees—to claim refugee status and funding in both the West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza. No wonder FLAME for decades has opposed U.S. funding of UNWRA.

Second, only a few days after entering office, President Biden committed to reopen the Palestinians’ diplomatic mission in Washington, even though under an anti-terror amendment passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in 2019, the Palestinians will become liable for $655.5 million in financial penalties against them in U.S. courts if they open an office in the United States.

By contrast, it took President Biden weeks until he picked up the phone to Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, America’s strongest Middle East ally and one of our most stalwart worldwide.

What makes this even more disturbing is that during those first crucial weeks, the Israeli leader could have pressed his country’s case against rejoining the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal—something that now almost seems like a fait accompli, and that Israel considers a horrifying existential threat.

Third, just as problematic, is the Biden Administration’s lifting of sanctions against the International Criminal Court’s lead prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. The Trump Administration had placed the sanctions on Bensouda last year after she launched an investigation into alleged war crimes by Israeli officials and US military personnel in Afghanistan.

Bensouda had been accused of opposing her organization’s own mandate by going after the U.S. and Israel, neither of which are signatories to the Rome Statute. Furthermore, by launching the investigation into Israeli “war crimes” she had to break the ICC’s own rules by asserting the existence of a Palestinian state, when there is legally no such thing.

These are just some of the steps the Biden Administration has taken during its first few months, without a single quid pro quo from the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership, while pocketing all the goodies from the U.S., is still involved daily in incitement to violence against Israelis, Americans and Jews, glorifies terror and has not rescinded its incentivization for its terrorist bloodshed program “Pay for Slay.”

What’s more, the Palestinian Authority has not once said it is interested in returning to negotiations. The PA understands very well that it has only to ask for incentives, and it will receive.

The Palestinians’ latest ask was revealed at the recent J Street lobby conference, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on the Biden administration to revoke a U.S. law that deems the Palestinian Liberation Organization and its affiliates a terror group. Abbas argued that the law is now irrelevant as Israel and the PLO have now recognized each other.

This is certainly up for question if one were to read the propaganda coming out of the Palestinian Authority. Certainly, no PA functionary has ever dared proclaim Israel the ancestral home of the Jewish people.

In fact, according to Palestinian Media Watch, all 11 political parties that will run in May’s scheduled Palestinian elections express their rejection of Israel’s right to exist by including in their logos the PA map of “Palestine” that erases all of the State of Israel and includes it in “Palestine.”

Additionally, in March, a PA TV program cites the PLO Charter representing the destruction of Israel as “self-defense,” hides that it was supposed to have been amended, and broadcasts sections of the Charter calling for Israel’s destruction, saying Israel exists on Palestinians’ “stolen homeland.”

Surely, the Biden Administration can make some progress in bringing the desperate Palestinian Authority to at least make gestures toward peace—specifically by discouraging Palestinians’ continued violent rejectionism. Indeed, the U.S. should make concessions only when the Palestinians have demonstrated that they are serious about recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, ceasing its “Pay for Slay” program and ending its incessant incitement to hate of Jews.

Supporters of President Biden—whether independents or Republicans, but especially from the Democratic Party—should be pushing the White House and their Congressional representatives to stop indulging the Palestinians’ intransigence. Providing economic handouts and diplomatic gifts to the Palestinians without any demands of reciprocity has simply, factually never worked.

Rather, the reason the conflict continues is because the Palestinians understand that they can maintain their international welfare funding without moving an inch, and they have refused to change their demands and behavior for almost 30 years.

I hope you will point out to friends, family, colleagues and your elected representatives that it’s time for voters who claim to support Israel, and believed President Biden’s pre-election promises, to hold him to account. We should be saying loud and clear to our Congresspeople and Senators that enough is enough. This is not the way to make peace, and this is not the way to treat an ally. The anti-Israel measures should stop immediately, starting with a denial of Abbas’ request that the PLO lose its terrorist designation.

Above all, Americans should demand that the Biden Administration reveal what facts convince it that the dictatorial (and bankrupt) Palestinian Authority—and its bitter terrorist enemy, Hamas—can realistically form a state. They should tell us why it’s a wise investment to funnel American taxpayer dollars to corrupt Palestinian and United Nations apparatchiks, who for decades have made zero concessions toward peace with Israel.

I hope you’ll also take a minute, while you have this material front and center, to forward this message to friends, visit FLAME’s lively Facebook page and review the P.S. immediately below. It describes FLAME’s new hasbarah campaign—which exposes the dangerous folly of the U.S. trying to entice Iran back intro the failed “Iran Deal” of 2015.

Best regards,

Jim Sinkinson
President, Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)