State, Congress face off over Palestinian aid
Key lawmakers want to block Palestinian Authority funds over cooperation with International Criminal Court probe.
WASHINGTON — Congress and the Obama administration are increasingly at odds over $370 million in annual economic assistance to the Palestinians.
The latest clash comes after the Palestinian Authority (PA) on June 25 shared hundreds of pages of war crimes allegations against Israel with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Key lawmakers said the move should trigger an indefinite suspension of aid, but the State Department told Al-Monitor that it doesn't agree.
“By formally submitting allegations against Israeli forces to the ICC chief prosecutor, President [Mahmoud] Abbas has triggered a provision in US law that suspends all economic assistance to the PA," the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said in a statement. "This bipartisan provision was written to prevent US tax dollars from rewarding purposefully provocative, unilateral steps that move us further away from the negotiating table."
The chairwoman of the Appropriations panel with jurisdiction over foreign aid, Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, issued a similar warning.
