United Nations HQ in New York. Photo: wiki commons.

Palestinian Authority (PA) official Khaled Mesmar recently said the U.S. has “threatened to cut off financial aid to the Palestinian Liberation Office in Washington if the Palestinian leadership submitted another membership bid to the United Nations,” Israel National News reported.

Mesmar’s admission comes amid comprehensive U.S. examination of the PA’s economic corruption. In a July 10 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing titled, “Chronic Kleptocracy: Corruption within the Palestinian Political Establishment,” U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) said Western nations should be looking at the ways Hamas leadership “mismanages the local economy” and blames Israel for its misfortunes.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas “lines his own pockets as well as those of his cohort of cronies, including his sons…who have enriched themselves with U.S. taxpayer money,” Chabot said.

“In his pre-election platform, President Abbas promised to end financial corruption and implement major reforms, but he hasn’t done much since then,” added Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Unfortunately, Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the thieves and officials who were involved in theft of public funds and who became icons of financial corruption.”