Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

The ZOA praises President Trump for proclaiming the United States should stop sending the Palestinian Authority (PA) $400 million of our American tax dollars each year – when the PA refuses to talk peace, and gives America no appreciation or respect.   In two tweets, President Trump wrote: 

It’s not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others. As an example, we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue. . . peace treaty with Israel.  We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.  But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?

Indeed, the PA has continually disrespected America and the Trump administration.  PA dictator Mahmoud Abbas blatantly lied to President Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson that the PA teaches “a culture of peace” – when in fact the PA promotes terrorism and the murder of Jews and Christians in their schools, textbooks, and government controlled media and mosques.  Abbas also repeatedly refused President Trump’s most basic humanitarian demand to stop the PA’s absolutely heinous practice of paying terrorists to murder Jews.   The PA spends $355 million per year – of our US tax dollars – to pay terrorists to murder Jews and Americans.  (See “P.A’s Abbas Lies to Trump that P.A. Teaches ‘Culture of Peace’– But PA Pays Salaries to Terrorists,” May 8, 2017; “ZOA: At Trump Press Conference, Abbas Lies about Incitement, Makes Pro Terror Demands: PA Rejects Pres. Trump’s Request that PA Stop Paying Terrorists to Murder Jews,” May 4, 2017; and “ZOA: PA’s Abbas Lied to Sec’y Tillerson – They Still Pay Arabs to Murder Jews,” June 15, 2017.) 

And most recently, Abbas and the PA pushed through the United Nations General Assembly a resolution criticizing President Donald Trump’s basic sovereign right to recognize Israel’s capital.  (See “Mort Klein in Breitbart: UN Had No Legal Right to Vote Condemning Trump on Jerusalem,” Dec. 26, 2017.)  The PA’s UN stunt is the ultimate insult to the United States:  No one has ever condemned another nation at the UN for recognizing a UN member’s capital. 

The PA’s insults and ridicule hurled at the U.S. president and administration know no bounds.  In recent weeks, the official twitter account of the PA’s ruling party Fatah – which is headed by PA dictator Mahmoud Abbas – tweeted posters of President Trump together with Hitler saying that there is no difference between Trump and Hitler; posters with a red “VETO!” stamped across President Trump’s mouth saying “Trump is an irrelevant clown”; and posters with shoes strewn across the faces of President Trump and Vice President Trump (the Arab symbol for disrespect), threatening, among other things: “Beware!  Jerusalem is not one of your casinos!” and “Jerusalem is a red line!” (The posters can be viewed at “Abbas` Fatah: Trump is Hitler – No Difference,” Palestinian Media Watch, Dec. 26, 2017.)   

In addition, Abbas’ senior advisor disgustingly proclaimed during the PA’s official sermon on December 22, 2017 that “the rubbish of the American president . . . isn’t worth the urine of one Jerusalem child.  (“PA: Trump’s ‘Rubbish’ Isn’t Worth a Jerusalem Child’s Urine,” Palestinian Media Watch, Dec. 25, 2017.)

Even pro-Palestinian former U.S. President Obama was subjected to the PA’s and Fatah’s insults.  For instance, Fatah senior official Jibril Rajoub called Obama’s 2011 UN speech “idiotic” and “like the speech of a student leader.”  “Fatah Central Committee Member Jibril Rajoub: Obama’s UN Speech Idiotic, ‘Sounded Like the Speech of a Student Leader’,” MEMRI, Sept. 23, 2011.)

Mahmoud Abbas and his regime are further disrespecting the United States by refusing to meet with U.S. envoys and members of the U.S. administration – including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.  Fatah senior official Jibril Rajoub stated: “we will not welcome Trump’s deputy in the Palestinian territories.”  (“Abbas Refusing to Meet With Pence During VP’s Visit to Region,” JTA, Dec. 11, 2017.)  The PA’s snub of Vice President Pence’s effort to meet with Abbas was particularly ungracious – especially considering the fact that, as President Trump aptly noted, the U.S. has been giving the PA hundreds of millions of dollars a year.  Abbas also announced that he won’t even consider a U.S. peace proposal. (“Abbas: We Won’t Accept Any American Peace Plan,” Israel Nat’l News, Dec. 22, 2017.)

The PA has also refused to sit down to negotiate peace with Israel for the past nine years – and has a long history of rejecting even the most over-generous peace offers, in 2000 and 2008, that would have given the PA parts of Jerusalem and a state – extraordinary concessions that the Oslo accord never contemplated.  (Then Israeli Prime Minister Yitchak Rabin told the Israeli Knesset, in his speech seeking ratification of the Oslo accords, that the final status resolution envisioned by Oslo was a Palestinian entity that was “less than a state.”  “PM Rabin in Knesset- Ratification of Interim Agreement,” Oct. 5, 1995, speech transcript.)

The PA leadership responded to these wildly generous peace offers by instigating deadly intifadas, in which Palestinian Arab terrorists murdered and maimed over 10,000 Jews.  Palestinian Arab terrorists have bombed pizza stores filled with Jewish children, Israeli buses and Passover seders where sat Jewish families, broke into Jewish homes and knifed children in their sleep and families sitting down at the Shabbat table, knifed to death Jews praying in Jerusalem synagogues, and knifed to death American Christian veteran and student Taylor Force, among countless others.  (See, e.g., “Jewish Girl, 13, Stabbed To Death In West Bank Bedroom Was U.S. Citizen,” Fox News, June 30, 2016; “SUICIDE BOMB KILLS 18; Infants Among Dead, Over 80 hurt in Jerusalem Sbarro Blast,” Daily News, Aug. 9. 2001; “Terrorist Murders Three at Family Shabbat Dinner in Israel,” July 22, 2017; “Palestinian Terrorist Kills US Tourist, Wounds 10 in Jaffa Stabbing Spree,” Times of Israel, Mar. 8, 2016.)

Throughout the past 25 years, the PA has blatantly violated the 1993-1995 Oslo accords that the PA signed – and that were negotiated under American auspices.  Instead of collecting weapons from terrorists, as Oslo requires, the PA promotes terrorism, gives instructions as to how to commit terrorist acts, and rewards Palestinian Arab terrorists for murdering Jews and Americans.  Indeed, just two weeks ago, on December 16, 2017, Fatah’s official twitter account posted detailed instructions for Palestinian children as to how to best hurl rocks at Jews using a slingshot weapon, along with a picture of a young Arab child about to release a rock with his slingshot.  Palestinian terrorist rock attacks have murdered and critically injured hundreds of Jews, and Jewish babies. (See “Fatah’s Guide to Rock Throwing for Kids,” Palestinian Media Watch, Dec. 27, 2017.)

The PA honors Jew-killers at every opportunity, and names streets, schools and sports clubs after them, and broadcasts television specials honoring them and their murderous acts.  Just last week, Abbas spent Christmas eve honoring a leader of Fatah’s terrorist “Al-Aqsa martyrs brigade” who plotted an attempted suicide bombing at an Israeli grocery store.  (“Abbas Spends Christmas Eve Meeting With Fatah Terrorist,” Jerusalem Post, Dec. 26, 2017).  

And instead of economically cooperating with Israel, as Oslo requires, the PA – along with designated terrorist groups such as Hamas and the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) that are part of the PA government – along with their “civil society” front groups – instigated worldwide boycotts of Israeli Jewish (and other Jewish) products, businesses, artists and cultural and academic institutions.  (“Unmasking BDS: Radical Roots, Extremist Ends,” by Dan Diker, JCPA.)

For all these reasons, for many years, the Zionist Organization of America has been calling for the U.S. to stop sending our tax dollars to PA dictator Mahmoud Abbas and before that to his predecessor, unrepentant murderer Yasser Arafat, and to the terrorist Palestinian Authority regime.  (See, e.g., “ZOA Criticizes Bush Policy of Sending New Funds to Terrorist Palestinian Authority Regime,” July 3, 2003; “ZOA Urges Congress To Block Bush’s Plan For Direct Aid To Terrorist Palestinian Authority Regime,” Nov. 18, 2004; “Over 200 ZOA Activists Meet With Congressmembers To Urge Action Against Funding The Palestinian Authority, And Action Against Saudi And Iranian Support For Terror,” July 5, 2006; “ZOA To Obama: Stop Funding & Training Fatah Killers,” Dec. 29, 2009; “Proof – U.S. Aid To Abbas’ PA Is Funding Terrorists,” July 29, 2011; “Hundreds Of ZOA Activists On Capitol Hill: Tighten Screws/Possible Military Action On Iran –– Stop Aid to P.A. . . .,” May 24, 2013; “ZOA Praises Board Member David Schoen’s Vital Work in Winning Case Against PLO/PA: Proof PLO/PA Funds, Promotes Murder of Jews,” Mar. 2, 2015; “ZOA: World Must Finally Get Serious About Radical Islamist Terrorism After Istanbul Massacre,” July 29, 2016; “ZOA Supports Taylor Force Act: Stop US Aid to PA Until PA Stops Paying to Kill Jews,” Mar. 1, 2017; “Abbas Refuses To Stop Paying Jew-Killers Salaries – Trump Should Stop US Aid to PA,” May 8, 2017; “ZOA: Why Are We Funding a PA Terror Regime Which Is Also A Police State?,” Aug. 11, 2017.)

ZOA President Morton Klein stated: “After many years of administrations that pursued the counterproductive, dangerous policy of supporting a PA regime responsible for destroying so many innocent Jewish and American lives, it is gratifying to see that President Trump is asking the right question:  Why should we keep paying the PA hundreds of millions of dollars of US taxpayer money to a PA regime that neither appreciates nor respects America, continues to pay terrorists to murder Jews and Americans such as Christian tourist Taylor Force and 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel while sleeping in her bed, and continues to refuse to negotiate peace with the Jewish state?  ZOA hopes that the answer to that question will be the end of US payments to the Palestinian Authority.”