The Obama administration justified releasing more than $192 million in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority with false information, according to an Israeli expert who monitors the Palestinian media’s constant promotion of violent, hateful rhetoric.
The administration quietly reinstated the P.A.’s aid last month after it was frozen by Congress in the wake of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s attempt to declare statehood before the United Nations. The administration also secretly attempted to restore funding to a U.N. cultural agency that unilaterally — and illegally — recognized the “State of Palestine.”
In explaining the administration’s rationale for reinstating the funds, White House spokesperson Tommy Vietor claimed, “The P.A. has recognized Israel’s right to exist, renounced violence, and accepted previous agreements, including the Roadmap,” in reference to the peace plan advanced by the Middle East Quartet, according to AFP.
Each of these claims is false and promotes the erroneous notion that the Israelis have a genuine partner for peace, said Itamar Marcus, an Israeli activist appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to represent the Israeli government in negotiations with the P.A. on incitement issues.
“This is totally, totally false information,” Marcus told a crowd of congressional staffers and other observers Friday during a presentation on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Endowment for Middle East Truth. “Someone has to get the proper information to the White House” because it is “releasing $192 million based on false information.”
“The Palestinian Authority is in total violation of these principles” detailed by the White House, he noted, before launching into a presentation outlining the multiple ways in which the P.A. teaches its youth to hate Israel and become violent terrorists intent on eliminating the Jewish state.
During a broadcast of a popular Palestinian children’s show earlier this month, a child is praised for stating: “Our enemy, Zion, is Satan with a tail.”
She goes on, with the moderator’s encouragement, to discuss taking Israeli lands, a declaration that elicits the host to applaud and exclaim, “Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!”