Exclusive – America First Legal Suing Biden Administration for ‘Enabling’ Palestinian Terror

Palestinian protesters hurl stones during clashes with Israeli forces in the Shuafat Pales
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images

In light of recent terror attacks in Israel, including the deadliest one in over a decade, conservative law group America First Legal (AFL) is demanding President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s State Department end the “enabling” of Palestinian terrorism.

America First Legal (AFL), a conservative group founded by former President Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller which aims to fight against “lawless executive actions and the Radical Left,” is pushing to hold President Biden accountable for his financing of Palestinian terrorism. 

In December, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) announced his filing of a lawsuit against the current administration “to stop them from breaking the law,” after then-President Donald Trump signed the Taylor Force Act into law. 

Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, attends a news conference with the GOP Doctors Caucus on the origins of covid-19, the delta variant, and vaccines, outside of the Capitol on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) outside of the Capitol on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The Act, named for an Army veteran killed by a Palestinian terrorist while visiting Israel in 2016, seeks to prevent tax dollars from financing terrorism by prohibiting U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) while it continues to pay stipends to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons and families of the deceased.

Slamming the president’s “failed foreign policy,” Jackson accused Biden of “actively stabbing our greatest ally in the back,” noting that Democrats are “ecstatic” over the betrayal of the Jewish State.

Taylor Force

“Israel has the right to exist in security, free from violent assault, and the United States should do everything we can to uphold that right and oppose all who threaten it,” he added,

According to a Friday communiqué, the necessity of the group’s lawsuit is “unfortunately illustrated by the recent heinous actions” committed by Palestinian terrorists who, last Friday, “increased their terrorist attacks on innocent Israelis, all with the blessing and celebration” of the Palestinian Authority (PA):

Last Friday, a 21-year-old Palestinian terrorist shot and killed seven people and wounded at least three others as they exited a synagogue in Jerusalem after prayers in observance of Shabbat. The next morning, a 13-year-old Palestinian terrorist shot and seriously wounded a father and son outside Jerusalem’s Old City. Celebrations for these attacks with fireworks and sweets were memorialized all over the internet, including the mother of Friday night’s murderer herself handing out candy. 

In addition, the group noted, “an official in the Fatah movement, which runs the PA, praised the terrorists, announcing, ‘We greet and bless these heroic operations in Jerusalem by the heroes of Jerusalem.’” 

AFL, highlighting the PA’s “long history of committing acts of terrorism,” noted that the recent attacks “follow a significant increase in terrorist activities with 2022 being the greatest number since 2006.” 

Indeed, for decades, the PA – lavishly funded by the U.S. and other Western governments – has actually paid terrorists to indiscriminately murder and maim people living in or visiting Israel. Among other things, the PA’s “Pay to Slay” program rewards terrorists and their families with cash bounties based on the number and severity of the civilian casualties they inflict. The mother of Friday night’s Palestinian murderer rejoiced at the large cash reward she is slated to receive for her son’s terrorist actions.

Pointing to the Biden administration’s full awareness that the PA “pays Palestinian terrorists to injure or kill innocent Americans and Israelis in Israel,” the group panned President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken’s “blatant violation of the Taylor Force Act, a federal law that prohibits the government from sending American taxpayer dollars to the PA until it stops supporting terrorism,” following the resumption of payments to the PA “after the Trump Administration had stopped these payments” in compliance with the Act. 

With the Biden administration having “lawlessly transferred hundreds of millions U.S. taxpayer dollars that directly benefit the Palestinian Authority,” AFL condemned the “facilitating [of] the PA’s violent extremism and virulent, eliminationist antisemitism.” 

The group also announced it is “proud to represent these plaintiffs in its lawsuit to stop the Biden Administration from defying federal law.”

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Friday, Julie Strauss, senior counsel with AFL, called out the Biden team’s “hypocrisy” on the matter.

“That President Biden had the temerity to call Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu days ago and condemn the ‘horrific terror attack’ outside a Jerusalem synagogue so well illustrates the hypocrisy and nerve of the Biden Administration,” she said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a special cabinet meeting on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, at the Jerusalem Municipality building, in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 9, 2021. (Amit Shabi/Pool Photo via AP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 9, 2021. (Amit Shabi/Pool Photo via AP)

Strauss, accusing the president of complicity in the enabling of Palestinian terror, vowed to do everything to fight against the criminal conduct.

“Biden well knows that his administration is enabling Palestinian terrorists to brutally murder innocent Israelis by his scorning the Taylor Force Act,” she said. “This administration has the blood of children and adults on their hands, and AFL will do everything in its power to stop this brazen violation of federal law.”

The matter comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region in the midst of a tense period of bloodshed in Israel.

AFP

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu give a joint news conference in Jerusalem. (AFP)

Last Friday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, seven people were murdered, including a minor, in a terrorist shooting attack in Jerusalem as they were leaving a synagogue after Sabbath services. 

A second attack took place the morning after when a 13-year-old terrorist opened fire on a group of Israelis outside the Old City of Jerusalem, severely wounding two people, a father and son. 

In a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he mourned the “innocent Palestinian civilians” killed over the past year in the West Bank, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority were terrorists – most killed while carrying out attacks.

Though Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly vowed he would never stop rewarding terrorists, even if it was down to its last penny, the Biden administration reinstated aid to the PA last year.

In fact, Abbas’ own deputy in his ruling Fatah faction admitted Palestinian Authority security forces were fighting alongside terrorists.

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.

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