A senior official in Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement last week declared that the U.S. has “not given the Palestinians anything of substance,” disregarding billions of dollars in American financial aid to the PA.
“Recently we were forced to review all of our relations with the American administrations in recent years, and not just the Trump administration,” said Fatah Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Al-Aloul in an interview with London’s Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.
“We assessed that nothing good will come from them for the Palestinian people and the nation, and this is completely clear,” he said Jan. 20.
In his comments, Al-Aloul ignored nearly two decades of uninterrupted financial aid that the PA has received from the U.S. Since 1994, the PA has garnered a total of $5.2 billion through the U.S. Agency for International Development alone.
Al-Aloul’s remarks came about a week after Abbas issued similar statements snubbing U.S. financial assistance. The PA president said in a Jan. 14 speech to the Palestinian Central Council, “Let [the U.S.] not do us a favor by paying us money...We do not want anyone to pay us.”
“And may [President Donald Trump] not tweet at me on Twitter that, ‘We will not pay money to the Palestinians because they are refusing negotiations.’ May your house be destroyed,” Abbas declared.
Regarding Abbas’s comments on Trump, Al-Aloul stated that he would have “recommended…stronger expressions.”
The snubs from top-ranking Palestinian officials came in the wake of the recent U.S. policy changes on Jerusalem. Amid the fallout, Abbas declined to meet with Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the region this week.
