Helping those in need always seems like a good thing on the surface, but the Palestinians' governing authority is a terrorist group that just killed more than 1,400 citizens of Israel, the country Biden just visited.
"We will have mechanisms in place so that this aid reaches those in need – not Hamas or terrorist groups," Biden wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Others aren't so sure.
"It's a mistake because I can't understand how he's going to ensure that that money, along with anything else, any tangible goods won't immediately go to the combatants," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said on Washington Watch Wednesday. "This is the same administration that has been giving hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to the Palestinian leadership for the last three years and look how that has worked out.
"This is a deeply corrupt Palestinian leadership there in Gaza. I don't trust them at all," Hawley continued, "and I haven't heard a word from the administration about how they're going to ensure that this money actually goes to people in need and not to terrorists."
Biden said more than a million Palestinians have been "displaced and conflict-affected" since Israel responded to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks with a bombing campaign against strategic Hamas targets in Gaza.
The U.S. has a history of giving to Palestinian Authority which stretches back for decades, according to The Times of Israel.
In addition, U.S. taxpayers support Palestinian schools and their mission of teaching Israel hate to young children through U.S. giving to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. This past June, the U.S. wrote a check for $153 million to UNRWA, whose stated goal is to provide assistance and protection for registered Palestinian refugees.
According to the UNRWA website, assistance is provided several ways, primarily through education.
But before any aid package can be passed by Congress, House Republicans must work through party divisions and elect a speaker.
Aid package for Palestinians will also fund some Republican priorities
When aid does come, the $100 million Biden pledged will be proposed to Congress to include money for Ukraine in its war with Russia. That's likely to draw pushback from some Republicans, but Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in a New York Times story that the package includes funding for some important Republican priorities like more wall construction along the southern border and support for Taiwan.
Hawley told Washington Watch host Tony Perkins that Palestinian aid should be tied to the release of hostages Hamas is currently holding in Gaza. Reports have the number at more than 200.
"That absolutely should be a condition that is included. Multiple Americans are being held hostage," Hawley said.
"This just adds to the numerous idiocies frankly that this administration has pursued by helping these terrorists, and I'm thinking in particular of the $6 billion to Iran. I mean, that turns out to be one of the most idiotic decisions by an American president in recent memory, and this guy has a lot of those. We could talk about the chaos in Afghanistan and just go down the list, but $6 billion made available to Iran at exactly the time Hamas was planning this terrorist attack on Israel and this hostage taking … I mean, multiple Americans have died now," Hawley said.
A reported 30 Americans have died at the hands of Hamas terrorists since the Oct. 7 attack. Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators sent a letter to President Biden demanding that he make the Americans still being held hostage by Hamas his top priority.
