As the Trump administration reportedly works on a peace plan it hopes will satisfy both Israel and the Palestinians, there are several factors that need to be taken into account.
For one thing, it is not at all clear that the American prerequisites for negotiations will be met by the Palestinians – separate and apart from final status issues. Thus, the much touted reconciliation agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas –designed to persuade the world that the PA speaks for all Palestinians and that any agreement it signed would be binding in their name – has become problematic.
Hamas has not agreed, despite U.S. and Israel insistence – to acknowledge any recognition of Israel, to renounce violence, and to disarm. Indeed, it has very publicly declare its rejection of those conditions.
For another thing, U.S. law is likely to get in the way. Without the aforementioned conditions being met, the U.S. is legally barred from dealing with a PA that has Hamas as a governing partner.
On a related note, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has advised the PA that the Palestinian mission in Washington will be shut down, the result of a law that plainly prohibits the operation of the mission in the U.S. if the Palestinians push for prosecution of Israel in the International Criminal Court.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly in September, PA President Mahmoud Abbas did just that, saying: “We have called on the International Criminal Court to open an investigation and to prosecute Israeli officials for their settlement activities and aggressions against our people.”
To be sure, following formal notification, President Trump has 90 days to consider whether the Palestinians are in “direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.” If he determines they are, the office can be reopened. For their part, Palestinian leaders are threatening to cut off ties with the U.S. if the mission is shut down.
Of course, there are no negotiations ongoing at this time but that may not foreclose some fancy footwork to attempt getting around the clear words of the statute.
We are reminded of how several presidents, including Mr. Trump, have postponed moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as a federal law explicitly requires, by invoking a plainly non-applicable “waiver” provision in that law. Mr. Trump did so in response to vociferous objections from the Arab world. Chances are he would find it much more difficult to manufacture the existence of people meeting around a negotiating table.
There is also the matter of the soon-to-be enacted Taylor Force Act. That legislation is named for Taylor Force, a U.S. Army veteran who was murdered in Israel by a Palestinian terrorist in March 2016. As has been its regular practice with terrorists who are killed or imprisoned, the Palestinian Authority has been making monthly payments to the family of Taylor Force’s killer from a so-called Martyrs Fund. Indeed, the greater the atrocity, the larger the payment.
The Taylor Force Act requires a cut-off of U.S. aid to the Palestinians unless the PA takes steps to end terrorism by “individuals under its jurisdictional control,” publicly condemns and investigates terror attacks, and stops paying monthly stipends to the families of terrorists.
It’s noteworthy that Mr. Abbas refused Secretary Tillerson’s request that he stop the practice of supporting the families of terrorists. Mr. Abbas characterized the Martyrs Fund as merely a social welfare program that assists families in dire financial straits.
Hopefully, with the White House having invested so much effort in attempting to end the PA’s subsidies to terrorists’ families, there will be little if any inclination, from the president on down, for a creative end-run around the provisions of Taylor Force.