At a time when the leadership of the United States is engaged in a contentious struggle over the building of a security wall along the southern border to help keep citizens safe from terrorists and others, the United Nations has opened its doors wide for the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas a.k.a Abu Mazen, and the government of the United States of America has granted him a visa to enter the country.  What makes this so shocking is the fact that Mahmoud Abbas is himself a terrorist who openly calls for the destruction of Israel and the United States, yet he was allowed to enter the United States and was welcomed at the U.N.

Since Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005, the standard of living for the Palestinian people in Gaza has steadily declined even though Israel gifted the Palestinians with thriving agricultural lands, productive greenhouses and beautiful beachfront communities.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s priorities are not geared toward helping his people, but on maintaining his grip on power, privilege, and finagling foreign aid.

The PA’s increased payments to terrorists and their families to $403 million a year, from $347 million last year are a stark incentive to violence and murder. Some apprehended attackers confessed to committing terrorist acts so as to clock enough prison time “to financially set their families for life,” said Eric Mandel, Middle East Political and Information Network director. Why bother with a PhD or vocational training when all you need is a kitchen knife and a few innocent bystanders?

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s priorities are not geared toward helping his people, but on maintaining his grip on power, privilege, and finagling foreign aid.

U.S. President Donald Trump recently tweeted a clear, long overdue message to Mahmoud Abbas; in effect: you can’t have it both ways.

Offended by Trump’s December speech, which clearly left Jerusalem’s final boundaries to be negotiated by both sides, Abbas overreacted with trademark false accusations, and a huffy rebuttal of the U.S. role as peace broker.

Like the proverbial farmer sawing off a tree limb but forgetting he’s sitting on it, Abbas overlooked the billions in U.S. aid funneled to the PA since the mid-’90s, which last year alone totaled more than $730 million in all sectors—economic and humanitarian, security and justice, and UNRWA. Abbas’s tantrum backfired. It’s payback time.

President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel skirted the question of the city’s final boundaries under Israeli sovereignty, leaving them to be determined by final-status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. His stance is in line with the Oslo Accords, to which both parties agreed amid fanfare and a White House lawn ceremony. 

But despite the Palestinians’ signatory acceptance of Jerusalem’s disputed status, their disregard for international law and diplomacy has consistently undermined peace efforts.