The West Must Stop Funding Terrorism

This is how aid agencies and the U.N. have become a well-oiled machine for financing terrorism and self-destruction.

Everyone who has followed the news from Washington in recent weeks knows that President Donald Trump and his efficiency officer, Elon Musk, are busy drying up the wasteful swamp. According to reports, Musk has already saved the American taxpayer billions of dollars.

Of course, the Department of Government Efficiency, called DOGE, is not only an economic endeavor, but also is spreading an ideology aimed at nullifying those programs advancing radical agendas and policies considered anti-American.

American Financing of Terrorist Organizations

The time has now come to deal in a similar manner with radical anti-Western, anti-Israel and even antisemitic financing on the international level.

The United States made a good start by acting to close USAID, which through the years had transferred millions of dollars to anti-Israel organizations and bodies linked to terrorism.

Some of the programs linked to terrorism are known to the public. For example, in November 2022, USAID gave $100,000 to a Palestinian group of activists whose leaders praised the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a declared terrorist organization. Only six days before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, USAID transferred $900,000 to a terrorist organization in Gaza linked to the son of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

A report by the Middle East Forum in February found that USAID transferred millions of dollars to organizations in Gaza controlled directly by Hamas. In one case from the Biden period, USAID financed the Educational and Community Center in Gaza, controlled by the local group Unlimited Friends Association. This association cooperated openly with Hamas, inviting senior leaders of Hamas to its offices, and boasted of American-financed projects in Hamas-controlled newspapers. In 2021, the director of the organization called for Jerusalem to be cleansed of “the filth of the Jews.”

A report published in January by NGO Monitor detailed the financing of millions by USAID to two nonprofit organizations — Mercy Corps and American Near East Refugee Aid — that coordinated closely with the office in Gaza managed by a senior Hamas official identified by the U.S. Treasury as previously responsible for some of Hamas’ smuggling operations. USAID humanitarian aid packages were found in Hezbollah weapons depots in Lebanon.

Sen. Ted Cruz said the full story of USAID financing of Hamas “is vast and much of it was done in secret,” and he accused the agency of an intentional cover-up.

Even worse, Samantha Power, appointed by former President Joe Biden to administer the agency, led USAID to accuse Israel of intentionally blocking shipments of aid to Gaza, knowing that Hamas was stealing the aid and using and selling it on the black market to finance its terrorist operations. Workers at USAID demanded that Biden’s State Department stop military aid to Israel.

Early activities by the Trump administration to cut financing to UNRWA should be praised, the organization having a long history of glorifying terrorism and invalidating Israel in its textbooks and schools. We now know of UNRWA workers who participated in Hamas terrorist activities and that the organization’s facilities took part in acts of terrorism by Hamas and that those facilities served as storage sites where Hamas launched rockets. The full dismantling of UNRWA is the next challenge. It has a budget of $1.5 billion and can be employed much better to settle true refugees and to work for peace.

The United Nations — A Much Larger Problem

In fact, the halt of American financing of the U.N. in its entirety could be justified, at least for a time, as a preventive measure. Why should the United States give the U.N. more than $18 billion a year when this organization is financing a variety of departments and agencies clearly inimical to the United States and Israel?

According to Professor Eugene Kontorovich, the U.N. finances agencies working to advance controversial agendas and questionable programs such as transgenderism, training LGBT writers in the third world, “the blue helmets” (peacekeepers) who were proven to be useless and a waste of finances, and layers upon layers of massive bureaucracy advancing accusations of apartheid, colonialism and war crimes against Israel, while advancing a Palestinian state in an unrestrained manner.

Influence of Qatari Money

There is the issue of the investment by the Islamic government of Qatar estimated at $30-45 billion in the United States — money that pollutes academia, the media and the American business world and clearly contributed to recent anti-American and anti-Israel demonstrations.

The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy documented a huge increase in Qatari financing of American universities since Oct. 7, with direct links between the scope of contributions from Qatar and other emirate countries and activities by groups of Arabs and radical leftists bringing terrorism to campuses.

In short, follow the money. The time has come to investigate and cancel the financing of highly malicious and subversive activities on a global scale.

Palestinian Authority — Constant Failure

And in our much narrower world, a rigorous examination and rethinking of global support for the Palestinian Authority is necessary.

Since the glamour days of the Oslo Accords tens of billions of dollars invested in the corrupt Palestinian Authority have not brought the building of even a single hospital or significant housing project in the West Bank and also have not encouraged the political moderation and maturity of the Palestinian leadership.

Exactly the opposite: With the wild abundance of international generosity without too many conditions, the Palestinian national movement has become more and more aggressive and inimical toward Israel over the past 30 years.

Even more outrageous is the policy of the Palestinian Authority through which Palestinian terrorists and their families are compensated for murdering Israelis on a graduated scale, glorifying the more murderous attacks.

For example, the Palestinian Media Watch organization documented more than $140 million in payments by the Palestinian Authority to Palestinian terrorists currently released by Israel in the horrific deals to exchange terrorists for Israeli hostages. These terrorists have received payments from the Palestinian Authority since their incarceration. Palestinian Media Watch says that more than 300 of the worst terrorists, of the 750 total, have been freed as millionaires.

Will We Continue To Fund the Enemy?

All of this raises questions about the fervency of European countries and international aid agencies to pay for “reconstruction” in Lebanon and Gaza. While Hezbollah continues to rule in Lebanon (under the cover of the Lebanese government’s olive branch) and Hamas continues to rule in Gaza (under the cover of what will likely be declared a “reformed” Palestinian Authority government), should more billions of dollars be pumped to these disaster areas in the form of concrete, steel and gas?

We all know, of course, that no one in the very concerned and very humanitarian international community, which is slanted against Israel, is going to invest in the reconstruction of northern and southern Israel, areas that were destroyed and emptied of their population as a result of attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas.

But do the unhealthy habits of the past need to subsidize the rearming and reconstruction of Hezbollah and Hamas? Does the United States, Canada or Germany really need to participate in another international donor conference, a conference of international contributors to pump more money into the territorial sinks controlled by these terrorists? Did they not learn anything from Oct. 7?