Rep. Ronny Jackson, April 17, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Picture.

Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-TX) slammed the Biden administration Friday for giving the Palestinians more aid in the wake of Palestinian terror attacks in Jerusalem that killed seven people.

“I am deeply concerned that the Biden administration is signing-off on hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, which are being used to help finance violence against Israel,” Jackson said in a statement. “The recent terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli families are a deeply disturbing example of the devastation caused by Biden’s failed foreign policy. Biden is actively stabbing our greatest ally in the back and Democrats are ecstatic.”

Antony Blinken on Tuesday announced $50 million in new aid to UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee organization, during a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. That brings the total aid that the administration has provided to UNRWA since President Joe Biden took office to $940 million.

Critics argue that the agency lacks transparency and that its efforts support the Palestinian Authority (PA) in violation of the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits aid to the PA so long as it continues to provide stipends to the jailed perpetrators or surviving family members of terrorist attacks, a program sometimes called “pay-to-slay.” 

Rep. Jackson is a plaintiff alongside Stuart and Robbi Force — parents of Taylor Force, an American who was murdered in 2016 at the age of 28 by a Palestinian terrorist during a knife spree attack in Jaffa — in a lawsuit against President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken alleging that the Biden administration’s funding of UNRWA and other Palestinian aid violates the Taylor Force Act.

“This lawsuit aims to compel the Biden administration to act in accordance with the laws that are on the books, to stem the flow of funds from the White House to radical Islamic terrorists,” Jackson said. “Together, we will hold this administration accountable and fight to bring a permanent end to the pay-to-slay program. Let’s be clear: Israel has the right to exist in security, free from violent assault, and the United States should do everything we can to uphold that right and oppose all who threaten it.”

The suit alleges that Biden and Blinken “are unlawfully laundering U.S. taxpayer funds through non-governmental organizations to directly benefit the Palestinian Authority.” While the US does not provide money to the PA itself, the suit argues that the money to UNRWA and other organizations “directly benefits the Palestinian Authority” in violation of the Taylor Force Act.

Stuart and Robbi Force said that the recent attacks in Jerusalem made the new funding particularly disturbing.

“Until the maiming and murder of innocents stops, there will be no hope for peace,” they said in a statement Monday. “And, until the Biden Administration stops facilitating Palestinian terrorism, the PA has no reason to stop its reprehensible behavior. For the sake of the thousands horrifically impacted now and in the future, Robbi and I call upon President Biden to stop sending fungible taxpayer dollars to the PA that will end up funding terrorism.”

The lawsuit, led by the America First Legal, which is headed by former Trump Administration advisor Stephen Miller, calls for the freezing of all aid that benefits the Palestinian Authority and an injunction against the delivery of any future such aid. The civil suit was filed in December and is currently pending in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.