Last Wednesday, U.S. President Joseph Robinette Biden repeated claims that "Hamas does not represent the vast majority of Palestinians" in Gaza.
In the weeks following the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, the president has pushed this position of the terrorist group remaining distinct from Palestinian society.
While well-meaning, efforts by President Biden and many on the left to characterize the majority of Palestinian Arabs as peace-seeking people are misguided.
Furthermore, a recent poll shows that 57% of Muslim Americans say the Hamas attack was “somewhat justified.”
In 2006, one year after Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas handily won Palestinian legislative elections, defeating Fatah, a party misrepresented by many as a conciliatory alternative to Hamas.
Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
A survey conducted last June by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is popular and would defeat PA President Abbas (56% to 33%).
Moreover, the study exposed that over 70% of the Palestinian public supports forming "armed resistance groups" to fight Israel.
This poll was taken 17 after Hamas seized control of Gaza.
Still, some Democrats distort regional realities by perpetuating a detached narrative that emphasizes extracting Israeli concessions instead of demanding Palestinian accountability.
Rather than disable funding for those promoting the destruction of Israel and terrorist-linked organizations, like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the Biden administration insists on increasing financial assistance to Palestinian-controlled entities, whose radical leanings undergird the reluctance displayed by Arab leaders to open their borders to Palestinians leaving Gaza.
By qualifying statements of support for Israel with expressions backing Palestinian independence, President Biden is suppressing progress in the region by promoting a false paradigm that undercuts regional security while quelling Palestinian motivation to improve their circumstances.
Almost immediately upon taking office, President Biden reversed Trump-era policies that cut off Palestinian aid by restoring $235 million in Palestinian economic and development funding while also halting State Department grants for joint research and development projects at Ariel University.
Since then, America's financial commitments to Palestinian-led territories include the latest disbursement of $100 million "in humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank."
This resumption of payments follows the horrific Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and subsequent to revelations detailing private admissions by State Department officials of Hamas receiving "indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza."
The implications behind the administration’s show of generosity are rooted in troubling statistics illustrating the jump in terrorist attacks against Jews once Biden resumed Palestinian financing.
Perhaps most disturbing is that restoring U.S. payments is transpiring as the PA continues a financial reward system for terrorists and their families.
This flow of funds violates congressional passage in 2018 of the Taylor Force Act, named for a non-Jewish U.S. army veteran murdered in a 2016 Tel Aviv stabbing attack by Palestinian terrorists.
The bill, which President Trump signed into law after congressional approval, halts U.S. funding to the PA until its leadership abandons its "Pay for Slay" policy of awarding terrorists and their families with hefty salaries for killing Jews.
PA guidelines dictate that the more egregious the crime, the higher the compensation.
For example, under current Pay-for-Slay laws, Palestinian Media Watch notes that the PA will pay almost three million dollars in "martyr" stipends to families of dead terrorists and prisoners who participated in the gruesome Oct. 7 assaults.
The Biden administration giving Palestinian rejectionism a pass while reviving financing to Palestinian-held territories preserves assumptions that terrorism targeting Israel solely emanates from Hamas.
On the contrary, accounts following the Oct. 7 massacre highlight the difficulty in finding hostages since some Israelis were taken by "ordinary Palestinians” who broke through the border fence during the assault.
While most Palestinians may not be Hamas terrorists, an overwhelming majority sympathize with the group's murderous objectives.
Over the years, terrorist attacks resulting in the death of Jews are greeted by thousands of Palestinian civilians, erupting in celebration with bonfires and fireworks on the streets of Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza City, and other neighborhoods glorifying the death of Jews.
The scope of these festivities indicates that the toxic Jew hatred permeating Palestinian society extends beyond Hamas.
Testimonies revealing women and teenagers' crucial role in carrying out the horrific murders confirm that Palestinians outside of Hamas's orbit were passionate partners in the Oct. 7 massacre.
To date, some estimates place the number of "regular" Gazans involved in the day's slaughter by entering Israel between three and four thousand.
Whitewashing the extremism embedded in the Palestinian community reinforces dangerous Palestinian policies, such as Pay-for-Slay.
It also suppresses the minority of Palestinians who do not share in their co-religionists’ thirst for Jewish bloodshed.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs recently released the The Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform), which exposes the PA's systemic breaches of the 1993 Oslo Accords and calls for deepening discourse related to the PA's promotion of terror.
The IPAAR correctly delineates that holding the PA accountable for its malfeasance towards Israel must first be corrected before the emergence of a new and more moderate governing structure can propel the Palestinian people toward a promising future.
The antisemitic vitriol spewing from PA spaces, including its Ministry of Religious Affairs, which instructed mosque preachers to issue calls for the extermination of Jews during Friday’s Oct. 20, sermons are integral to shaping Palestinian public opinion, which is deeply antisemitic.
Those remaining critical of policies proposed by politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., (a GOP presidential hopeful), and former President Donald Trump, also a presidential candidate, to ban Gazan refugees from entering the U.S. are accelerating a willful dissonance, the consequences of which the U.S. is already witnessing on our shores.
Absent the intellectual honesty to tackle the depth of corruption and hatred of Jews steeped in Palestinian society, Democrats' diplomatic pursuits will fail to materialize into the Palestinian society that they so desperately and dangerously help fund.
Irit Tratt is an independent writer residing in New York. She obtained her Masters in International Affairs with a focus on the Mideast from George Washington University. She has worked as a legislative assistant for several members of Congress. She maintains her advocacy work through her involvement with organizations such as The Tikvah Fund, The Republican Jewish Coalition, and The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). Irit is a steering committee member on the Board of Fellows at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). Ms. Tratt has been published in The Jerusalem Post, The American Spectator, The Algemeiner, JNS, and Israel Hayom. Read More of Irit Tratt's Reports — Here.
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