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President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been named as defendants in a new lawsuit in which they are accused of sending billions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority that were allegedly used in a “pay for slay” program that cost the lives of many Israeli and United States citizens.
The lawsuit was brought by the America First Legal Foundation filed on Tuesday and alleged that some of the funds sent to the PA were used for the PA Martyrs Fund, known to some as ‘Pay to Slay,’ The Daily Caller reported. In 2017, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act which was supposed to prevent funding the PA but the government has continued not to send billions in aid.
“[T]he defendants took power on January 20, 2021, with a new plan: Transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to the Palestinian Authority despite Pay to Slay and contrary to the Taylor Force Act,” the lawsuit said. “Contrary to law, they have transferred nearly half a billion American taxpayer dollars to directly benefit and subsidize the Palestinian Authority.”
“In 2016, 28-year-old U.S. Army Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran Taylor Force was murdered by Palestinian terrorists while visiting Israel as part of his graduate program at West Point. Force’s parents, Stuart and Robbie Force worked with former President Donald Trump and Congress to pass the Taylor Force Act in 2017, which prohibited the U.S. government from providing any type of funding to the PA unless they ended the ‘Pay to Slay’ policy,” the report said.
“Our role in the lawsuit is as it was in our efforts to enact the original Taylor Force Act – to put a human face on the horrific effects of the Palestinian Authority’s Pay for Slay policy,” Stuart Force said to The Caller. “Multiply the devastating loss of our beloved son Taylor by the hundreds of Israeli families that have also been impacted by this inhumane atrocity of Pay for Slay and you will understand why we are committed to ending the flow of US dollars to the PA.”
In May 2020, Biden declared during his campaign that he planned to restore funding to the PA, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The following year, after assuming office, Biden authorized over $360 million in funding to Palestinian aid.
The funding was sent just months before the Biden administration admitted to Congress in a private report that the PA had not ceased the “pay for slay” policy, according to the lawsuit. That same year a Palestinian official admitted that PA had paid $181 million in “bounties” for terrorist acts committed against Israel.
“If [Biden and Blinken] understood what motivates Israel’s enemies, the elimination of the State of Israel, I would think they would stop any funding that could possibly find its way into the wrong hands,” Force said. “Aside from the increased rocket barrages, tunnel construction, and increased frequency of attacks on innocent civilians when ‘foreign aid’ increases, the money is used in its widespread PR campaign to incite violence and foment hatred of Israel and the United States.”
Sarri Singer, who survived a Palestinian terrorist attack, in 2003 that murdered 17 and injured more than 100 people, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. She said that she does not believe that the Biden administration “have my best interests or safety in mind by sending money over with no accountability.”
“It is almost 20 years later, and I am still dealing with the long-term effects of the attack,” she said. “There is still shrapnel in me that is not operable and not a day goes by that I am not reminded that a simple bus ride to meet a friend for dinner turned into one of the largest bus bombings in Israel during that time.”
The lawsuit said that the Biden administration has acted “utterly lawless.”
“It is a total mystery to me why Biden and Blinken are violating a federal law, the Taylor Force Act,” Force said. “By stopping the flow of dollars that funds Pay for Slay (and other horrific actions), we hope to change their criminal behavior.”
