The Muslim terrorist who murdered Taylor Force had no idea that his death might become a wake up call for Americans.
Taylor Force had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, he had served at Fort Hood in the year of the infamous Islamic terrorist attack on the base, but a Jihadist finally caught up to the veteran, whose father and grandfather had also served their country, in civilian life during a visit to Israel.
Masalha came from Qalqilya which is under the civil control of the Palestinian Authority. Its mayor, Othman Dawood, is a member of Fatah, the core political organization behind the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. Fatah celebrated the murder of Taylor Force and other victims of the attack, praising Masalha as a “heroic martyr”. It named him and two other terrorist attackers as “the pride of all of the young Palestinians” and urged future terrorists to go on killing in their name.
Palestinian Authority television called the terrorist who murdered an American, a Shaheed, a martyr for Islam. And the Palestinian Authority’s support for the murder of Taylor Force doesn’t just end there.
The Palestinian Authority pays terrorists based on the amount of harm they caused and the resulting jail sentence. Had Masalha survived his attack on Taylor Force and the other victims, he would have likely been paid $2,000 a month for his act of terror. That’s pretty good money in a place where $2,000 is more like an annual income. It’s so good that that there’s no shortage of terrorists eager to kill for cash.
The Taylor Force Act was introduced to cut off aid to the terrorist PA unless it ceases this practice. The Palestinian Authority has made it very clear that it will go on funding Islamic terror.
PA Chairman Abbas and numerous other Palestinian Authority leaders have rejected the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump, and many other governments and legislators to stop the payments of salaries to imprisoned terrorists.
Following the demand made by Israel and just before Abbas' meeting with Trump last week, Director of the PLO Commission of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake announced Abbas'"absolute refusal":
"The President [Abbas] emphasized his absolute refusal of the Israeli demands to stop the allowances of the families of the prisoners and Martyrs (Shahids), and emphasized his absolute support for them (i.e., for the payments).'
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has come up against the same problem. After Tillerson's claim that the PA would stop, the terrorist leaders made it clear they would not.
Palestinian officials stated on Wednesday that they have no intent to stop these terror payments. However, the Trump administration still endorses a budget proposal that would increase aid to the Palestinian government by nearly five percent, bringing the total amount of U.S. aid to around $215 million.
That's not really total aid. Because a lot of money gets funneled through other vectors. But that's an official figure.
And so back to the Taylor Force Act. If the White House won't act to stop funding terrorism, Congress can. In theory. The TFA is proving fairly popular with Republicans. And so that means it has to be neutered. Like nearly every pro-Israel thing that wends its way through Congress.
AIPAC claimed to be working for the Taylor Force Act. But some members of Congress, likely Republicans, claimed to have never been contacted by AIPAC about it.
"I've heard nothing from them on it, and we've met with their reps a number of times since the Taylor Force Act was introduced," said one senior congressional source, who would only discuss the matter on background.
Multiple other sources in the House and Senate further confirmed that AIPAC has largely been absent from the debate, telling the Free Beacon the lobbying group appears "neutral" and "unenthused" about the bill, despite public declarations otherwise.
That isn't surprising as the group is wired into the Two-State Solution.
Then there were reports that AIPAC was working to secure Senate Democrat support for it. How? By neutering it.
At the same time that the administration is working to solve the payments issue with the Palestinians, there are efforts on Capitol Hill – supported by the influential pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC – to soften the Taylor Force Act so that it could receive more Democratic support, and also not cause any damage to Trump’s efforts to restart the peace process. One option that is being discussed is to phrase the bill in a way that would not lead to a total halt of all aid to the Palestinians, but rather, deduct from it the amount going to the terrorists and their families.
This would fall into line with Senator Cardin and other Dems signaling that the TFA needs to be more "targeted". Other Dems, including Coons, have emphasized that they don't want to cut off all aid.
There's an obvious math problem here.
According to its 2016 budget, the PA currently pays 26,800 prisoner families the sum of $183 million per year. Approximately 6,500 Palestinian prisoners convicted for terrorism by Israel receive PA salaries amounting to $135 million annually.
That would exceed the current official budget aid figure. Deducting one from the other wouldn't work too well. If you subtract $303 million from $215, the PLO ends up owing us a lot of money.
So what are the options for neutering the Taylor Force Act?
1. There's the method Tillerson halfway hinted at. Treat direct payments to terrorists ($128 million) as the problem, not money for "widows and orphans" ($174 million). It would be quite an aid cut, but still a nice amount of money.
2. Do the "50% sale" thing by doubling prices and then cutting them in half. Triple payments to the PA and deduct terrorist payments.
3. Exempt security assistance and humanitarian aid from the cuts. And anything else deemed vital. And voila. Nothing changes.
This is why "All or nothing" is vital. Once you neuter the TFA with loopholes, it becomes meaningless. The foreign policy establishment will not accept it. And their allies will find a way to poke a hole in it unless Americans remain vigilant.