Delusion in the White House. Bloodshed in Israel.
- October 9, 2023
Eli Lake, The Free Press
As Hamas gunmen were in the initial stages of a raid that has left more than 700 dead, 2,408 wounded, and at least 100 held hostage in Gaza, the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem weighed in on the unfolding horror.
Let’s start with Biden’s policy to restore U.S. funding for Palestinian development after the Trump administration ended it. As The Washington Free Beacon first reported in August, internal documents show the State Department, in 2021, secretly sought a Treasury Department exemption to release more than $360 million to Palestine despite concerns that at least some of it would go to Hamas. (According to a May 2021 State Department press release, that money went to humanitarian organizations providing, among other things, emergency shelter, food, and healthcare, including “mental health and psychosocial support.”)
But the story, based on the State Department’s own documents and obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, is damning. A draft application for the exemption says, “We assess there is a high-risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza.”