Hamas Terror Group To Officially Join Palestinian Authority

A former Treasury Department terrorism finance analyst said that given the administration’s history of working to maintain aid to the Palestinian Authority even while it continued to fund salaries to convicted terrorists, the U.S. may try to find a way to preserve the funding, at least in the interim period.

“There is a lot of activity happening on Capitol Hill right now with members of Congress seeking to determine what prompts a full cut in assistance to the Palestinian Authority. At least for now, we’re seeing proponents of the Palestinian Authority insisting that the creation of a so-called technocratic government or interim government would not trigger such a cut,” Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based research organization, told TheBlaze.

“Because they [Hamas members] haven’t changed their take on violence, they haven’t renounced violence, their mere presence in a unity government could potentially prompt a full cut in aid,” said Schanzer who recently authored the book “State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State.”

Notably, Schanzer also pointed out that it’s unclear what Israel will do about the funding it provides to the Palestinian Authority. Because Israel has a vested interest in the Palestinian Authority running day-to-day affairs in the areas it controls, it’s not at all clear if the taxes Israel collects for the PA will be withheld as a punitive measure.