Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The administration of President Barack Obama has refused appeals from Congress to stop Palestinian Authority funding of convicted killers of Americans and Israelis.

A senior official told a House subcommittee that the administration would not penalize the PA for financing Palestinian insurgents jailed in Israel.

Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson said PA salaries to
convicted killers, many of them Hamas members, marked a political issue.

“I think this obviously is a difficult problem, and when they pay the
families of people that are in prison and they pay stipends, I would say
that is a political prison and I frankly know that they’re going to try and
phase that out and we should give them an opportunity to do so,” Ms.
Patterson said.

In a hearing of the House Middle East and North Africa subcommittee on
April 29, Ms. Patterson defended the PA policy that has paid millions of
dollars to Fatah, Hamas and other insurgents. In an exchange with Rep. Randy
Weber, the assistant secretary ruled out any cuts in U.S. funding to protest
the PA financing of groups deemed terrorist by the State Department.

“But we can help them phase that out,” Weber, a Texas Republican, told
Ms. Patterson. “We could give them some encouragement.”

Ms. Patterson disagreed.

“I would be hard pressed to say which of the programs for the PA we
should cut,” Ms. Patterson, a former ambassador to Egypt, said. “I would be
very hard pressed to say that.”

Ms. Patterson said the PA funds were meant for the families of the
convicted killers. But the PA said it was paying salaries to the Palestinian
prisoners.

A watchdog group disputed Ms. Patterson’s assertion that the PA planned
to end salaries to jailed Palestinian insurgents. The group, Palestinian
Media Watch, said the Palestinian prisoners marked a high priority, and that
aid would continue.

“There is nothing in all the activities and statements of the PA to back
up that claim [of Ms. Patterson],” PMW said.

In 2013, the European Union released a report that acknowledged that
billions of dollars in Western funding to the PA have gone missing. But
Brussels later stressed that the EU would not take any action against the
PA.

For her part, Ms. Patterson said she did not know how much money the PA
was paying to the jailed insurgents. The official, however, acknowledged
that the PA paid stipends to the insurgents upon their release. In 2012,
Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinians in exchange for the Hamas release
of an abducted Israel Army sergeant.

“They pay families whose relatives are imprisoned and then they do pay
some of these people after they’re released and I don’t have that figure,”
Ms. Patterson said.

  Anne Patterson, Obama administration defends funding to Palestinians that goes to convicted killers, Palestinian Media Watch, Rep. Randy Weber