The U.S. State Department reached a settlement on Tuesday, committing to enforce the Taylor Force Act, an anti-terrorism law barring U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues to subsidize terrorists and their families.
Congress passed the measure in 2018, and U.S. President Donald Trump signed it into law. The Biden administration opted not to enforce it.
The new settlement is to remain in effect for 10 years.
“Today is a good day,” stated Stuart Force, father of Taylor Force, 28, a U.S. Army veteran and graduate-school student, who was killed in a stabbing attack in Jaffa in 2016.
“This settlement agreement with the State Department reinvigorates the Taylor Force Act after the Biden administration ignored the law,” Stuart Force stated.
“This settlement reaffirms a basic principle, which is that American law cannot tolerate taxpayer dollars flowing to a system that rewards terrorism,” Mark Goldfeder, CEO and director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told JNS.
In Jackson et al. v. Trump et al.—initially, Jackson v. Biden when filed in 2022—America First Legal sued the Biden administration on behalf of Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) and the parents of Taylor Force for “unlawfully financing a foreign government that continues to incentivize terrorism,” in violation of the Taylor Force Act.
Under the agreement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the State Department commits to comply with the Taylor Force Act and to establish stricter internal review procedures.
The suit also includes terror-victim advocate Sarri Singer, who was injured in a suicide bus-bombing in Jerusalem in 2003 that killed 17 people.
“This case has always been about one fundamental principle: terrorism should never be rewarded,” Singer told JNS.
“As a victim of terrorism, a survivor of a bus bombing terrorist attack carried out by Hamas, I have lived with the painful reality that the person who carried out the attack against me is not only honored but that their family receives monthly payments because of that act of violence,” Singer told JNS. “That is not just a policy issue. It’s deeply personal, and it’s something no victim should ever have to endure.”
“At the same time, it is deeply troubling and unacceptable that, despite full awareness of the pay-for-slay program, the previous administration continued policies that allowed funding to flow in ways that supported terrorism,” said Singer, founder and director of Strength to Strength, a nonprofit that aids international terror victims.
She added that the Biden administration’s approach was a policy failure that sent a message to victims that their suffering didn’t matter.
