Obama’s Refusal To Stop Foreign Aid To Terrorists

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http://www.rjcwomen.org/rjc-leader-liz-berney-writes-obamas-a3082


RJC Leader Liz Berney Writes on Obama's Monetary Aid to Terrorists
Obama’s Refusal To Stop Foreign Aid To Terrorists

By Elizabeth (Liz) Berney, Esq.

As our unprecedented $14.5 trillion dollar federal deficit continues to spiral upwards, at least one spending cut should be a “no brainer”:  You would think that everyone would finally agree to stop sending our tax dollars (and the money that we borrow from China) to foreign regimes who want to destroy America, Israel, India and our other allies.

Yet, the Obama administration is still sending billions to regimes that incite terrorism, embrace vicious terrorist groups inside their governments, and consider America to be their enemy. 
 
Moreover, the Obama administration opposed two recent Congressional attempts to stop the administration's misdirected foreign aid practices.   First, the administration opposed bi-partisan Congressional resolutions to suspend aid to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the PA's unity agreement with Hamas.  Second, the Obama administration opposed a bill introduced by the Republican Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to condition funding to the PA and four foreign governments on these regimes disassociating themselves from terrorists and meeting related conditions.  .
 
The Obama Administration's Opposition To Congressional Resolutions:
 
Recently, the Obama administration insisted on continuing to send funds to the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) after the PA’s unity agreement with Hamas.  Hamas is a designated foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law, which cannot legally be the recipient of U.S. aid.
 
Both houses of Congress urged the Obama administration to suspend such funding, to no avail.  On July 7, 2011, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed House Resolution 268 (by a 407 to 6 vote).   On June 29, 2011, the Senate unanimously passed S. Res. 185.  These non-binding resolutions cited Hamas’s murders of over 500 innocent civilians, including 24 Americans, and reminded the Obama administration that giving aid to a PA that includes Hamas is unlawful.   Both resolutions “reaffirm[] the United States statutory requirement precluding assistance to a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas unless that Authority and all its ministers publicly accept Israel's right to exist and all prior agreements and understandings with the United States and Israel.”

Both resolutions further explain that the U.S. has given over $3.5 billion of direct aid “to the Palestinians, who are among the world's largest recipients of foreign aid per capita.”   Both resolutions then urged Obama to consider suspending aid to the PA pending a review of the Fatah-Hamas unity agreement.   

 (There are of course additional reasons why aid to the PA should be ended, including the PA’s own incitement of terror, the PA governing party Fatah’s responsibility for terrorists attacks that have killed and wounded thousands of Israelis, the PA’s violation of its agreements to dismantle terrorist infrastructure, and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s public admission that for years  - since way before the Hamas-PA unity agreement - the PA has been regularly transferring substantial portions of our aid dollars to Hamas-controlled Gaza.  In September 2010 (during Q&A at a New America Foundation speech), Fayyad admitted that the PA transferred an average of $120 million per month, or $4.3 billion in the past 3 years to Gaza, plus $260 million for a waste project.  In other words, even though the 2006 Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act makes it unlawful to aid Hamas, our tax dollars have been indirectly funneled to Hamas-controlled areas through the Palestinian Authority.)

Sadly, the Obama administration immediately made it clear that Obama will still continue funding the PA, regardless of what Congress says.  At a July 12, 2011 Congressional hearing, a State Department official (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jacob Walles) stated that the Obama administration “strongly” believes in “continuation of U.S. assistance” to the PA.   The Obama administration’s representative also ignored the real impact of the Hamas-PA unity agreement, and instead argued that because Salam Fayyad is still the PA Prime Minister, “nothing has changed.”   This argument was a blatant attempt to avoid the common sense imperative and legal requirements to cut off aid to the PA now.
 
The Obama administration apparently has no regard for what Congress says, and no regard for the fact that aid to a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas is unlawful.
 
The Obama Administration's and Democrats' Opposition To The House Foreign Affairs Proposed Law to Cut and Condition Aid To Terrorist-Allied Regimes:
 
In addition to failing to abide by the bi-partisan Congressional resolutions to suspend further aid to the Palestinian Authority after its unity pact with Hamas, the Obama administration also opposed a recent Republican-proposed law to cut funding that ends up in the hands of terrorists. 

The Republican Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, recently introduced H.R. 2583, “The Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2012,” which seeks to de-fund U.S. foreign aid to Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority unless these regimes meet certain critical conditions, including the following:

•  Further aid to Pakistan would be conditioned on Pakistan: assisting “investigating the existence of an official or unofficial support network in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden,” including access to bin Laden’s relatives and former compound in Abottabad; facilitating visas to U.S. citizens engaged in counterterrorism efforts; and complying with existing strategic assistance requirements to cooperate with the war on terror.  (H.R. 2583, Section 982)

•   Lebanon would not receive further aid if a member of Hezbollah (or other terrorist organization) serves in any government policy position.  Hezbollah currently dominates the Lebanese cabinet; thus Lebanon would need to change this to receive further U.S. aid.  The proposed law would also require the Lebanese government: to comply with the Special Tribunal investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; to dismantle foreign terrorist organization infrastructure; and to engage in anti-terrorism vetting and tracking of Lebanon’s security forces benefitting from U.S. assistance.  (Section 962)  These are all eminently reasonable conditions.  We should not be funding a government dominated by the very same Hezbollah terrorist organization that perpetrated terrorist attacks which killed hundreds of U.S. marines, and that is now pointing 45,000 missiles at Israel.

•   Further aid to the Palestinian Authority would be conditioned on: the PA finally terminating its anti-Israel incitement in the media, schools, mosques and other government-controlled institutions; no member of Hamas or other foreign terrorist organization serving in any government policy position; the PA finally meeting its obligations to dismantle foreign terrorist infrastructure, confiscate unauthorized weapons, pre-empt terrorist attacks and fully cooperate with Israeli security services; the PA’s recognition of Israel as a Jewish state; and anti-terrorism vetting and tracking of security services benefitting from U.S. assistance.  (Section 971)  These are also eminently reasonable conditions.  U.S. foreign aid should not be sent to terrorists or to governments that incite terrorism or break their agreements to thwart terrorism.

•   Security assistance to Egypt would be prohibited unless the U.S. President submits a report certifying that the Egyptian government: (i) is not directly or indirectly controlled by a foreign terrorist organization, its affiliates or supporters; (ii) is fully implementing the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty; and (iii) is detecting and destroying smuggling networks and tunnels between Egypt and Gaza.  (Section 951)  These items reflect Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen’s call for “the unequivocal rejection of any involvement by the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists who may seek to exploit and hijack these events to gain power.”   (By contrast, the Obama administration, through its prior spokesperson Robert Gibbs, said that the new Egyptian government “has to include a whole host of important nonsecular actors.”   In other words, Obama insists that the new Egyptian government must include the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization that promotes arms smuggling into Gaza and wants to tear up the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.)

Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen’s bill would also require the Secretary of State to submit a report that the Egyptian government is adopting and implementing legal reforms that protect the religious and democratic freedoms of all citizens and residents of Egypt.  The last item is aimed at stopping the horrific recent Islamist slaughters of Egyptian Christian Copts.

H.R. 2583 also contains “national security waiver” provisions permitting the President to waive above-mentioned conditions on foreign aid if the President determines this to be vital to U.S. national security.
On July 21, 2011, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen’s bill passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, 23 to 20.  Every Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee voted for the bill.  Sadly, every Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee (including our local Congressman Ackerman) voted against this worthy legislation.   It is particularly disappointing that Ackerman voted against the bill, in light of some recent constructive comments that Ackerman made condemning the PA’s incitement of terrorism and favoring defunding a Hamas-allied PA.  Ackerman should “vote where his mouth is.”

After passage out of committee, Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen’s terrorism defunding bill ran into an even bigger wall of Obama administration and Democratic Party opposition.   Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote a blistering letter to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, charging that the proposed defunding law would be “debilitating” to Mrs. Clinton’s “efforts to carry out considered foreign policy and diplomacy.”   Since when does any sane “considered foreign policy and diplomacy” include sending our tax dollars to terrorist regimes?   It is Congress’s right and duty to place restrictions on foreign aid:  The Constitution doesn’t give Mrs. Clinton and the State Department “carte blanche” with our tax dollars.

Outrageously, Mrs. Clinton also complained that the restrictions on aiding governments containing terrorists were “crippling.”   She also wrote that certifications regarding the involvement of foreign terrorist organizations in governments and the Palestinian Authority were “burdensome and infeasible” for the Obama administration.   In other words, it’s too much trouble for the Obama administration to determine whether our tax dollars are going to terrorists! 

Mrs. Clinton also specifically objected to a portion of the bill that requires the President to finally move the U.S. Embassy to Israel’s capital (Jerusalem) by 2014.

Mrs. Clinton’s letter also threatened that she will urge President Obama to veto H.R. 2583.  Obama has no doubt already decided to veto the terrorism defunding bill if it passes both houses of Congress:  the Obama administration has been sending more foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority than any past president, as well as aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza.  And Obama promised $1 billion in loan forgiveness plus $1 billion in loan guarantees to the Muslim Brotherhood-influenced new Egyptian regime.   
 
It is believed that the Democratic-controlled Senate will vote against H.R. 2583. (Moreover, the Senate version of a foreign affairs authorization bill, S. 1426, introduced by Democratic Senator John Kerry, contains no restrictions on sending foreign aid to governments that include terrorists or incite terrorism.)

Shamefully, there isn’t a single Democrat in either house of Congress who has supported Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen’s sensible, much-needed bill.  The lack of support for H.R. 2583 by Great Neck’s representatives in Congress is particularly disappointing.   While the bi-partisan Congressional support for the non-binding resolutions was very commendable, we need an actual law that has real “teeth.”  I hope that our community will contact our Senators (Schumer and Gillibrand) and Congressman Ackerman to urge them to support Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen’s proposed terrorism defunding legislation.  And, at election time in 2012, I hope that everyone remembers where the Obama administration insists on sending our tax dollars.
 
Elizabeth (Liz) Berney, Esq. is a RJC leadership member, former Republican Congressional candidate, and current Republican candidate for the Nassau County legislature.  The above article was originially published in two parts in The Great Neck News, Williston Times, and New Hyde Park Courier.